Choice of the Champion
by wearwind
Summary: After the events in Kirkwall, Hawke and Fenris flee the city and cross the Waking Sea, confronting the life they had before with the life past the cataclysm. Meant to cover Hawke's storyline between Kirkwall and Adamant. Subscribe for updates!
1. Crossing land

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part I: ON THE RUN**

 **Chapter 1: Crossing Land**

The sparks from the dying embers were dancing in the wind. Aedale Hawke watched them with empty eyes, unmoving as the sun was slowly setting under the distant peak of Sundermount, making the shadows longer and longer. She had lit the bonfire with her hands, not magic.

Fenris was sitting silently at her side.

"Are you blaming me?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "For stopping me from ripping his heart out the first time I realised he was an abomination? For not killing him yourself when you did? Yes, I am blaming you."

Aedale swallowed soundlessly. Her throat seemed suddenly dry and thick.

"The rest of the responsibility, however, is his alone."

Silence stretched between them. The cold northern wind blew, extinguishing the last flames in the ashes; the summer was ending. Aedale shivered as she felt the chill under the thin layers of her hastily scrambled old armour. Fenris wordlessly stood up, picked up the blanket and tucked it around her shoulders.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Silence fell again. Aedale stared at the dying bonfire, not making any move to rearrange the awkward way in which the blanket was hanging from her shoulders. Memories raced through her mind: _the thundering blast, the crush, the sudden push of the Veil being opened by so many passing souls at the same time-_

"We should rest before tomorrow", said Fenris without looking at her. She shivered again, more violently.

"I won't sleep tonight."

"You have to. We must find horses and get to the Waking Sea by tomorrow." His voice betrayed a hint of frustration; his clawed hands opened and curled into fists again, as if he wanted to rearrange the blanket on her shoulders again. He composed himself, though. She shook her head impatiently.

"I know. We will. I just won't sleep."

A short pause. "Why?"

"The Veil-" Her voice faltered, thickened with uncried tears. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing her disobedient body to stay still; another shiver went through her, one that had nothing to do with the northern wind.

She felt an uncertain hand on her shoulder – and then, as its grip suddenly gained confidence, two strong arms pulling her to a metal-plated chest. Fenris shifted and embraced her tightly. One of his hands grasped the blanket and wrapped them both in its warmth. Aedale let out a strained giggle that sounded more like a cry than anything else.

"Look at you, all fussing over me like that... the world has gone mad. What's next, the Chantry being blown to bits?" She choked on the last words, hiding her face in his chest, desperately trying to still her shivering. Fenris' arms tightened even more around her, his palms rubbing gentle circles at her back.

"I have always fussed over you."

Another memory of grief and loss flashed on the inner side of her tightly squeezed eyelids. He had held like that before, a long time ago, as she'd cried her anguish and sorrow into his chest – _after Mother was killed._ There had been fire, too, she'd stared into its swirling red ribbons and crackling embers, and had not thought, had not felt anything. There had been a stilled sense of loss, as if nothing would bridge that gaping hole Leandra's death had torn through her life - _Bethany was gone, Father was gone, Carver was – he was gone too, lost to Templars and lyrium and the cold, distant Maker_ \- but of all the things she'd thought lost, Fenris had been there, the pain from squeezing his cold metal gauntlet anchoring her in reality.

"Y-yes, I guess you have."

Fenris rested his chin of her face and inhaled deeply, calming himself with effort. She knew he was feeling helpless. She knew he hated feeling helpless. But this time, this one time after seven years of being the tough mercenary-turned-noble-turned-Champion, she could not save him from his plight.

There was no longer a Kirkwall for her to be a Champion.

"Why won't you sleep?" he asked again, more softly, with a deep rumble in his voice. Aedale shivered again and felt another squeeze of his arms around her. "You won't make it to the coast. You're exhausted. I will carry you if I must, but I... _you_ should not want that, Hawke. Now is not the time to deny yourself rest."

"Fenris," said Aedale with a half-strangled voice, pressing her face to his chest. "How do mages dream?"

"How is this-" The elf trailed off and she felt his fists squeeze on her back. "What has the... the blighted abomination done to the Veil?"

"It tore," whispered Aedale. "It tore, and it shattered, and all those dead... I _felt_ them passing, Fenris, I _know_ they're there, pressing against it from the other side, all those people he killed... and crossing would be the easiest thing, and what do I say to all those souls? What do I say?"

His embrace was suddenly so tight it hurt. She did not oppose, _it should hurt, hurt meant feeling,_ she rested inert and silent in his arms as he trembled in helpless rage.

"You tell them it's not your fault."

"I literally gave explosives to a known unstable fanatic. This is not much wiggle room I have in this."

"You didn't know!" he roared. Aedale felt one traitorous tear trickle down her cheek; it was too late to blink it back. She tasted salt, suddenly reminded of the terrible monotonous days seven years before everything, the dried salt on naked lips as the refugee ship was making its way through the Waking Sea. She hadn't cried much since those days.

"It didn't matter."

"Hawke," now it was his voice that was stifled, heavy with unspoken emotion that was frustration, desperation, and helplessness in equal measures. "This is the only thing that matters. All that I learnt as a free man is that there's a choice before a responsibility, and you had none. _It wasn't your fault._ "

"O-of course. The one-armed man did it. Like in _Hard in Hightown_. The possibility of the Champion of the bloody place being involved a terror attack goes beyond even Varric's imagination."

That brought a small bitter smile on his face, one she didn't see but could feel in the tiny shifts of muscle under his skin. "Congratulations, Hawke. You have now surpassed the peak of incredulity."

She sighed weakly into his chest. Even though there was no way of bringing them closer together, with her cheek pressed tightly into the little creek of his chestplate, the squeeze of his arms around her told her that he would try.

"You are the only thing worth salvaging from that city," he said quietly. Aedale closed her eyes.

"Tell that to the dead behind the Veil."

"I would if I could."

The bonfire was now empty and cold. Fenris slowly unclasped his gauntlets and slid his bare hands under the blanket, drawing soothing circles on her back. She wondered tiredly whether the possibility of touch was meant as just as much of a consolation to him as it was for her.

"How long until we get to the ship?"

"A day's ride. Varric and Isabela should be waiting there."

"And the rest of them?"

Aedale blinked back exhaustion, glad that there was finally something concrete and factual she could focus on. "Merrill's staying, Aveline's staying. Carver... he'll stay by Cullen, they need just as many of level-headed folk as they can get right now. Anders-" And there it was again, a tight-squeezed knot in her throat, a sick feeling in her stomach, and a dull, pounding ache that seemed to transpire from her temples throughout the entire body. "I don't know what Anders will do. He'll run."

"He'd better," answered Fenris darkly through gritted teeth. "You should have killed him. He does not deserve a shred of mercy, least of all from you."

"Maybe. Probably." She moved her hands from his sides to rub her eyes, and felt him shift against her. "But with all the death around... I couldn't, Fenris. I could not send another soul through the Veil. Not then, and not there."

"And so the murderer walks free."

"He wanted to die. Killing him would be mercy. Let him live and see what his crime has wrought."

To that Fenris had no answer.

The long shadows crept lower and broader, spilling wide on the ground as the light of the sunset diminished and faded. The sun was gone, the light was gone, her life for the last seven years was gone, and Aedale felt another steady trickle of an unwanted tear, silent and hopeless as she was. It had been over thirty hours since she had any rest.

"How do I... start over? I've done it so many times before. I thought I've run out of ways things could go wrong."

"Hawke." Fenris let out a strange half-sad chuckle. "You haven't even reached your thirties."

"Mother wanted me to get married about three years ago, you know. I would have a family. Children. Tiny Hawkes running around, probably twins. With magic. Of course, I was too busy pining after you to even entertain a possibility, and yet..."

"Do you regret it?" The four words were carefully measured, wrought out of any emotion, and yet every single one was a heavy stone in Aedale's stomach.

"No. Never."

"And yet."

"And yet."

"I couldn't live like that," she whispered. "I couldn't live without a purpose. And raising children in a world so unstable would be... it would be a purpose doomed from the start. But now it seems like I needn't have bothered. _Everything_ I strove for was doomed."

"This is my attitude, Hawke. Not yours."

She let out a strangled giggle. "Guess you do rub off on me in some ways."

"Hawke…" Fenris sounded tired, hesitant, his hands fiddling with her armour straps restlessly. "I've done this before. The running. This is all I had ever known for years before meeting you. It's a life I do not wish for you, but it was… bearable. There is little I can imagine that could ever stop you."

"But you decided to stay. To settle. Build a life, and friendships, and a home. And I'm the very reason you're caught up in the middle of… of this. You could've stayed if it weren't for me." _I made you a fugitive again,_ she thought bitterly. _All that talk of settling down and starting over, and here we are, because of my mess: two people with nothing, on the run._

"You know what made me stay, Hawke?"

She flashed a quick, weak smile. "I did."

"Yes." He chuckled quietly. "You were the first kind spirit I met since Seheron. Not unlike the Fog Warriors, I suppose… Fierce. Proud. Loving, and open, and so very free. I could never see you bound, Hawke. Not by poverty, not by birth, not by your own magic. And I thought… I thought I could use company like that."

"Mmm." She reached out to tilt his head down, planting a soft kiss along the lyrium lines on his chin. "Sweet talker." For a single shining second, there was no Anders in the world, no blown-up Chantry, no terror on the streets of Kirkwall, there was just _him_ and the way the lyrium in his skin sang to her lips.

He held her tightly, waiting several second before returning the kiss; after all this time, he was restraint embodied, he was all about denial and warded caution; but he was also fierce, and passionate, and when his lips closed on hers her mind drifted away, leaving only the body to enjoy the urgent, sloppy kisses.

As they parted, panting slightly, noses inches away – his rough ashen-coloured skin against her unhealthy paleness – Aedale smiled without opening her eyes.

"I see why company is useful."

"Yes." He rested his forehead against hers. "It is not home, or settling down, that kept me in Kirkwall, Hawke. It was… company. There was never a person to trust on the run."

Heavy, unspent tears spilled down from her tightly shut eyes again; she felt a soft wet touch on her cheeks, spreading the salty moisture, and she knew that he was kissing the tears off her face. A sweet gesture, one so unlike and at the same time so _like_ Fenris that her heart swelled and ached at it. _He'll stay with me. He'll stay._

"I've never stopped following you."

 _So stubborn._

"I'm not sure if I'm in the best shape to follow."

"Then I'll carry you until you are," he stated simply, as if it were the most obvious thing and not a declaration of loyalty so fierce that it make her heart ache. She kissed him again, a little peck on the lips, but Fenris would have none of that: he tangled one hand in her hair, bringing her even closer, and gave her a thorough deep kiss that sent her head spinning.

She gasped for breath. Fenris' lip twitched in the slightest smug smirk as he pulled her down, shifting so they were lying face to face, wrapped in the blanket, heads resting on the heavy rucksacks.

"We should rest now."

"I can't-" she started, but the elf interrupted her.

"Have I ever told you about the jungles of Seheron? It's a hot, moist, dangerous place where battle has been raging on for years to no end, the endless struggle between Tevinter soldiers and Qunari forces. The battles have been going on for so long that all strategic meaning of the island is now forgotten, important as it remains. It is now a mark of pride for both the Tevinter and the Qunari, but for the native rebels in between them, it is more than that – it's the land of their people…"

As she listened to his deep, rumbling voice weaving a story from the threads she'd known from his earlier musings – _the brightly coloured poisonous flowers flooded by torrential rain, the thick fog veiling vipers and rebels, the white-clad white-faced fog dancers, old and wise and fiercely proud –_ a new thought appeared in her drowsy head, something that cut deep, painful and comforting at the same time.

 _We are now truly equal, he and I. The fugitives._

There was only one thing certain about the future – it would hold many deaths. The rest was an unknown, and she would need to take it and slice it into bearable pieces, and then endure – be it a Blight, a mercenary life, or an Exalted March. But then again, maybe it wasn't too brave to add Fenris to the list of things certain.

 _Fenris and death,_ she thought. _It fits. I like it._

 _-/-_

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Honestly, my first Inquisition playthrough, as awesome as it turned out to be, was a little underwhelming in terms of character development. I was ungodly (unmakerly?) attached to my Hawke, and the Inky I played as for the first time was a little bit of a reprise of her: a noble human mage who had a huge crush on Solas, and then, finding him unattainable, turned to Cullen and developed a wonderful, fulfilling, stable adult relationship for the rest of the game. (She was also an elemental mage, so go figure.) In short, she was as drama-free, healthy leader figure as you can imagine, responsible and respectable and all sorts of fantastic things. She also turned out to be terribly uninteresting - to the point where I was more excited about chatting to Varric about what Hawke was doing than about my actual protagonist. Sad times, I tell ya.

I fixed my Inky in the following playthroughs and now she's just as much of a badass as Aedale is, but that initial disappointment has bred **"The Choice of the Champion" - an attempt to retrace Hawke's way from Kirkwall to Adamant. „On the run" is the first instalment of the series, dealing with the aftermath of the Kirkwall battle and Hawke's journey to Ferelden. All the chapters are already written out and will be published regularly.** Please subscribe/bookmark for updates - and while you're here, why don't you leave a comment or something? I'll love you.


	2. Crossing seas

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part I: ON THE RUN**

 **Chapter 2: Crossing Seas**

The next day was dull and tiresome, spent travelling off-road mountainous routes and hiding at each sign of human activity. The occasional bandits Fenris slashed with his greatsword; they were still too close to Kirkwall, and Aedale dared not disturb the Veil, as well as leave tracks of any magic. They barely spoke during the day, both equally exhausted – Fenris had refused to sleep as well, stating in his usual off-hand manner that he did not wish to leave her alone at outlaws' mercy. She was too tired to protest.

The brightest moment of the day was, surprisingly, sent by Carver's hand: as they were walking along the Wounded Coast, a happy bark broke the silence and Aedale was suddenly pressed to the ground by the full weight of a charging Fereldan mabari. At his collar the dog had a curt message from her brother, stating briskly what they had already suspected: the Chantry had buried hundreds of souls under itself, mainly nobles and women of clergy, and the Gallows stood open, their front courtyard adorned with a figure of Knight Commander Meredith turned into red lyrium. The Circle was no more, the Chantry was no more, the Viscount's Keep remained as empty as it had, and the chaos resembled greatly the Qunari riots from three years ago; except where there had been a revered Champion now stood a hostile, murderous mage with an empty title. Carver's letter ended with a dry warning: she was not to return to Kirkwall until the situation was dealt with. Grand Cleric was dead by the hand of an apostate and the Divine was not likely to show mercy.

But for all the terrible, sickening news the letter brought, it contained no accusations, and Aedale felt the tight knot in her stomach loosen slightly. Carver wouldn't hesitate to swing it at her, and so if he didn't, it truly meant he did not hold her responsible for what had happened.

He also told her to keep Vindr. "The dog was always only yours after all," he wrote bitterly, but the sting wasn't there. The tables had been turned for the Hawke siblings; suddenly he was a man on a holy mission, while _she_ was an infamous fugitive. A part of her was glad about it – at least the family name would remain respectable in some aspects – but at the same time she wondered snarkily how difficult it must be to juggle the righteous Templar anger with three apostates in the immediate family.

 _Then again,_ she thought, _maybe that's the sort of background the Templar order desperately needs._

They sent Vindr to hunt and within an hour the mabari returned, proudly bearing a carcass of a hare. Fenris skinned it with practiced skill and they lit a small bonfire, roasting the meat until it smelled like a Dalish dinner; they didn't stop for a meal, eating hastily on the road instead, and the bonfire got carefully hidden under a pile of rocks. With the part of her brain that was still functional after forty hours, she mused how much easier and quicker everything would be with magic. However, she would still not dare, and Fenris seemed to take strange pride in taking charge instead.

Aedale tried not to think about the last time he was forced to lead a life like that.

 _Maker, this is my fault. And I told him he wouldn't have to run anymore…_

The port they were looking for turned out to be barely more than a fishermen's village with several piers stretching out into the sea, only just enough for a ship to moor. The villagers seemed used both to bandits and shady business, with hardly any heads turned by a human woman in mercenary attire, a dark-skinned lyrium-marked elf, and a Fereldan mabari. The ship wasn't there, but Aedale didn't worry; Isabela had probably weaved her way through the endless maze of the Wounded Coast's little islands, dodging any pursuit the Kirkwall Templars might have given. It was no secret, after all, that the Champion was a friend of hers – Aedale had _duelled the Arishok_ for the pirate's life.

She hoped Merrill was well. Aveline and Carver would survive thanks to their positions in the remaining structures of Kirkwall's law enforcement, but Merrill was an elven mage caught up in the middle of a crumbling Circle – in other words, fair game. The elf had refused to be taken on Isabela's ship and had headed to the alienage instead, keen on saving as many city elves as possible; _maybe_ , she thought weakly, _she'd even start her own clan._ She didn't know how those things worked amongst the Dalish, or whether it was even allowed, but she could imagine Merrill starting off a new lineage, a new tribe and family, taught the old lore by a Keeper rejected by her own clan. _If it is a Keeper's duty to remember, she would do a good job._

Fenris bought them a room; the innkeeper didn't even blink at the sight of a giant mabari hound following suit into a small two-person bedroom. As Aedale collapsed weakly onto one of the twin beds, Fenris joined her without a hint of hesitation. Vindr eyed them thoughtfully and jumped onto the other bed.

Aedale let out a breathless chuckle.

"So much for bed space."

"I am not leaving you alone with your nightmares, Hawke." Fenris unsheathed his greatsword and laid it down on the floor, the handle within grasp. _Not that he's ever unarmed._ He took off the spiky pieces of the armour and put it protectively under the bed; after that, he nestled himself against her back, hard, taut and protective. "Sleep now. The dwarf will find us when they arrive."

"I don't want to sleep."

"Don't be absurd. You were practically falling over."

"I don't want to," she repeated like a pouting child, in what felt like a reprise of their conversation last night. Her head was spinning gently, the room orbiting smoothly around their bed. _Like a star. Like Fade wisps around a violet sun._

"We're not close to Kirkwall at all, Hawke. The Veil will be stronger here, and without the dead. And I'll be here for your nightmares."

"I… I don't want to get into the Fade anymore," she whispered. Fenris reached out and embraced her tightly, his cool hand squeezing at her waist. He seemed far less likely to tell stories all night again; superior as his endurance was, the hardships of the day were starting to show in the deep shadows under his eyes.

"Nothing I could say would make a difference," he said in a low voice, with impatience lurking close to the surface. "Ask of me. Tell me what you need, and you'll have it. But don't you ever dare shut me out."

"Ask of you?" She giggled humourlessly. "Fenris, I can't lead you any longer. It's not… it's not one of my signature adventures anymore. I've got no purpose, no direction, my life has fallen to pieces by the hand of someone I trusted, and all I can do now is damage control. There's nothing to ask or need. I just want the world back to how it was."

"You mean the endless power struggle between Meredith and Orsino, with Grand Cleric doing nothing to stop them?" Fenris' hands tightened on her. _It's funny,_ she thought as if from far ahead, _we don't really talk face to face anymore._ "Or do you want the world with the Qunari in Kirkwall, with the tensions going up until the inevitable crash? Or maybe you want the time before your Blight, when you were safe and happy, and I was just a mindless tool of Danarius?"

"No!" She turned in his arms, staring right at him. His eyes were filled with frustration, his mouth taut and tight. She reached out to kiss him and he turned his head away.

"I can't give you the world back, Hawke. I… cannot."

"I'm not asking you to," whispered Aedale and her heart broke when she saw the look on his face, dark and sullen like a rabid wolf. Like himself in darker times. "It's… it's not that. It's just a wish gone wrong… a prayer for things irreversibly gone…"

"It's just grief," he said in low voice. She shook her head.

"It's not for something that was," her voice was wavering, _he hasn't looked at me like that for a long long time, how do I fix it? how do I fix it? –_ "it's for… chances we had, hopes we never got to fulfil, and every possibility of a calm, stable future we could have had, Fenris, a future where we wouldn't have to run!"

He stilled.

"And you are… blaming yourself for destroying it?"

"Yes," she breathed. "And I wanted it so badly that I don't dare enter the Fade even here, because if the Desire approaches me with a promise of that life, and it will, I won't stop it. I am… too tired… of losing things… " She closed her eyes, the sensation was similar to being drunk on his beloved Tevinter wine, spiralling down an endless staircase.

"Stupid mage." Suddenly she was in an embrace too tight to be comfortable, and kissed with a force that had both lyrium and blood in it. She winced as he bit her lip, forcing her to open her mouth; he angled her head backwards, almost pushing her over the bed, and thrust his tongue against hers, desperate to the point of brutality. She could feel the frustration and helplessness, a bitter sting on her lip; but there was also, finally, understanding.

"It was my choice, Hawke," he growled into her mouth. "My choice of following you. My choice of loving you. My choice of _you_ when you decided to stand by the mages in the Gallows. Do you think I was so blind I didn't see the danger? I could have stayed and be at peace in Kirkwall, but I chose to be at your side, and I stand by this choice. Whatever life you want, there is nothing of me you have lost. Nothing you cannot have. I'm yours, Hawke, in the city or on the run, and you are mine." He kissed her once more; she was too stunned to respond before he pulled away again. "Go to sleep. And tell that demon that there is nothing it offers that you cannot get yourself."

Aedale blinked several times, very slowly. Fenris was watching her face intently, his expression suddenly guarded, as if he was waiting for a reproach or rejection.

"You just told me you loved me," she said softly. Fenris scoffed.

"Of course I do, Hawke. This is hardly anything new."

"It is when you say it for the first time," she said, raising her hand to touch his cheek gently. He closed his eyes as her thumb moved across the white line of lyrium. "How… how long?"

"How long what?"

"How long have you… loved me?"

"Long," he said simply. Aedale felt a sudden lump in her throat.

"I do, too."

"Go to sleep, Hawke." But his eyes softened, and she was suddenly reminded of the previous night, and the soft wet lips that kissed the tears off her face. Fenris was a man who would not make a show of stating the obvious.

"Alright."

Fenris relaxed. The corner of his lip twitched slightly.

"Why are you making everything so hard for me, Hawke?"

"It's a talent some women have." Looking him in the eye, she wiggled against his crotch, and his expression darkened.

"Go. To. Sleep."

Aedale snorted against his chest. "Now I can." She could feel the irritated huff he made, but it was a toothless one; the memories of Kirkwall flashed in her head once more, when Isabela and she were having obnoxious discussions on how to frustrate men. _It could be,_ she thought, and hope almost dulled the terrible pang of guilt when she remembered the dead in the Chantry, _with just a shred of luck it could be that nothing will change. We could still have our lives. We could still have our… life. Even on the run._

She nestled herself securely against him. "Wake me up when Isabela comes."

"That's what he said," murmured Fenris.

Aedale choked with laughter. Seconds after, she fell into a deep slumber.

-/-

"Do _not_ wake her up," warned Fenris darkly, stepping up to board the ship with the slumbering Champion of Kirkwall in his arms. _Former_ Champion, most likely, after what had happened – he doubted anyone in the city will harbour any positive feelings towards mages for years to come. Varric took a passing glance at the elf's tired face, noted the deep shadows under his eyes, and wisely decided not to comment. The mabari eyed the little ladder distrustfully, took several steps back, and then jumped from the pier straight onto the ship.

"Thought this guy stayed in Kirkwall?" asked Varric, following Fenris aboard.

"Her brother sent him along. Kirkwall is crumbling."

Varric pressed his mouth into a thin line. "Sure it is. Any news from baby Hawke?"

"Nothing we wouldn't know," replied Fenris tiredly. "Where do I carry her?"

"That's-"

"Hawke!" Isabela walked out of her cabin. Something was decidedly different about the way she carried herself; rather clumsy and ragged on land, on the ship she seemed to walk in full confidence, hips swaying in the gentle rocking of the board. There was a captain's hat on her hair, and with certain dulled surprise Fenris noted that she was no longer wearing makeup – she looked as if, for once, she actually meant business.

"-the person you should be asking," finished Varric. Isabela passed him and gently touched Aedale's arm. Fenris instinctively rushed back, terrified that she was going to wake up the exhausted woman in his arms, but Isabela stepped away instead.

"It's so strange," she said, her voice quiet. "I never really saw her sleep. She'd always be this jumpy little bugger, terrifying for everybody but us. I never thought that would be how she'd board my ship."

"Stop talking as if she's dead," snapped Fenris. Isabela eyed him up to bottom.

"My, what happened to _you_? Has _she_ carried you the rest of the way?"

"Just show me where our cabin is."

"Give the elf a break, Rivaini," said Varric behind her. "They've had enough over the last couple of days. We've all had."

"It's not all-"

"Just point him to the cabin," said the dwarf. Isabela rolled her eyes. But her face softened as she looked back at Fenris and the small woman he was clutching to his chest.

"Alright, bring her here."

As he followed Isabela below deck Fenris noticed that her swaying gait, drunkenly and ungraceful on land, made perfect sense on a rocking ship surface. The ship that she was leading him through was just big enough for the crew and cargo, with no space left unutilised; the mess-deck barely fitting two dozen people, the corridors narrow, lockers and nautical instruments taking up every niche and hole on the walls. With a somewhat dulled surprise he noticed books on the lock-shelves; it was always a revelation when Isabela let it slip that she was, in fact, quite intelligent.

Aedale shifted in his arms and he pressed her closer, careful of the metal claws at his fingers. She was no Champion anymore; and yet he was sure that the people would still follow her. Maybe not in Kirkwall, no, but Hawke did prove that she didn't need money nor fame nor a position to rise up from poverty into heights of power. She had done it before, and he did not doubt for a second that she would do it again.

Meanwhile, he would carry her; a shadow protector of a woman too fearless to keep to shadows.

The cabin Isabela gestured him into was barely worthy of its name; it was a narrow little room with a wide berth taking up most of the space, a compartment under it, lock shelves on the slanting walls, a round bull-eye window as the only source of light. Fenris laid down the sleeping woman, gently untangling himself from her arms, and shrugged off the ragged rucksack on his back. Then he sat down at Hawke's side, not making a move to take off neither the armour nor the sword.

Isabela raised her eyebrows. "So? Aren't you going to strip now?"

"Not for your pleasure," he replied dryly. "I'm not leaving her."

The pirate rolled her eyes. "Nobody asks you to leave her, Fenris. You look like hell. Just have some rest before she wakes up, that's it. Nobody's going to assassinate you in your sleep, promise."

Fenris hesitated. "How many of the crew?"

"About a dozen," said Isabela. "They're tough folk, and very loyal. I've sailed with them before. They've been through enough trouble not to have any sympathy for Kirkwall's Gallows, and lots of it for anyone who'd open them."

"Ex-prisoners, then." Fenris pressed his mouth into a thin line. Isabela made a dismissive gesture.

"As I said, tough, loyal, and I vouch for them. But you'd probably not have any troubles butchering them all if they came here to mutiny right now."

Despite everything, Fenris found himself cracking a weak smile. "You know how to reassure me, Isabela."

"Well, I've been dealing with your sorry ass for years now, haven't I, huh?" She leant against the doorframe, looking at him with a curious expression. "Is she alright?"

His hand found Hawke's waist and rested there. "I… don't know."

A heavy silence filled the room.

"This is just like the last time with the Qunari," said Isabela quietly. "She's got the worst luck for people in the world. Last time it was me causing all this mess. Now it's Anders."

"You came back."

"I didn't want to. I was halfway to Llomeryn before something stupid made me turn around. And then, even after I ran off and left you guys to die, she fought for me. She fought the fucking Arishok." Isabela's face softened as she looked at the small frame of Hawke resting behind Fenris. "For a liar and a traitor. I still don't know why."

"She let the mage go, too."

"She does that, doesn't she? Not kill. That's what she's doing whenever she can. Not killing."

He clenched his teeth, remembering the mage's face as he'd risen up to her, just a short while after he had blown up hundreds of innocent people. "Too much of it."

"You know what I'm scared of?" Isabela paused. When Fenris didn't answer, she continued, "That one day she's just going to… stop. No more saving people. No more doing crazy stuff. That we just… dissolve into strangers, she and I and us all, and the world goes back to what it was six years ago. I don't know if I could handle it."

Fenris wordlessly clenched his fist on Aedale's tunic. _She's not going to stop._ _Not the Hawke I know._ But a cold shiver went through him as he imagined the future without her as a beacon.

Isabela coughed and stood straight, the aura of a captain snapping back in place. "Not like you're going to believe it, but you're actually safe here, so get some rest before she wakes up. We need to figure out some sort of plan after."

"Tell the dwarf I'll join you in a while." He dropped his sword to the floor. In any case, he thought, he could grab it in half a second. "And…" He hesitated, the improbable rare words thick and uncomfortable in his throat. "Thank you, Isabela."

She flashed a toothy grin at him. "I'm not doing it for you, you know."

"I know."

"Maybe a little."

Fenris raised his eyebrows wordlessly.

"You are a knob, but a somewhat attractive knob. That's my weakness." Isabela winked at him as she left, hips swaying to the rhythm of the gentle rocking of the ship.

He lay down at Aedale's side, his chest pressing tightly against her back. Before he slipped into a deep dreamless sleep, he felt a spark of gratitude for the exhaustion; it let him not think about the future.

-/-

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I feel like even though Fenris plays tough, and even though he really believes that Hawke can turn literally anything to her favour, he's more affected by leaving Kirkwall than he lets on. It's been six years, after all. He's just not going to let her see it.

Next part's gonna have more Varric in it, I promise.


	3. Sharing burdens

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part I: ON THE RUN**

 **Chapter 3: Sharing burdens**

"Does it feel weird without a spy network to let you know all the stuff?" asked Isabela. Varric raised his head from the desk in the captain's quarters, the only one on the entire ship; he'd been writing letters for hours now. Many people would want a clear account on what had happened in Kirkwall, and he was not going to waste the chance of actually sending out the word when the ship was still anchored.

"It feels like not having a limb, Rivaini. You'll survive, but awkwardly."

"What's the plan now?"

Varric shook his head. "Heck if I know. I can't manoeuvre around without information, and this is big enough that we need lots of it. We could be game for the next Exalted fucking March right now as far as I'm concerned. We need to get to a city."

"Just any city?"

"One with a bank, for starters. I need to relocate to my money somewhere safe before it gets ripped apart by some overzealous Chantry clerks."

"Varric," Isabela circled the table and leaned towards him from the opposite side, peeking at the documents from upside down. "I'm not exactly great with planning things. Should we wait for Hawke?"

"She'll get here as soon as she's awake. It's just finance now." Varric turned his head back to the letters. "Besides, she's just lost her entire life in a literal blast. I know Hawke's a hero, but she's also just a kid. Give her a break."

"That coming from a man half my height? Bold." Aedale pushed the door open, making both Isabela and Varric look up abruptly. Both grinned widely in unison; she was still visibly worn out, but no paler than usual, and her bright blue eyes were as piercing and keen as ever. Fenris silently slipped into the room behind her. "What's up, Varric, Isabela? How nasty of you to starting the scheming without me."

"Hey, don't look at me," shrugged Isabela with a smirk. "He started it. Boring bank business, apparently."

"I assure you, there is nothing boring about pissing off cutthroat shareholders like I'm about to." Varric signed off the document with an angular signature and laid down the quill. "Good to see you in the land of the living again, Hawke."

"Never left it." Aedale stretched and yawned violently. "Does feel good to have a little nap, though. Fenris and I had quite a hike through the Vinmark."

"Well, you were still quicker than us. Rivaini here had to dodge several tails for a while. Though I don't think they gave pursuit after the first day."

"Not a chance," said Isabela smugly. "Even if they tried, they would've crashed on the rocks if they followed us after that. No one knows these shores like I do."

Aedale nodded. "We thought as much." She walked up to Varric, briefly looking over his documents. "That is all for private correspondence, or are you in the process of plotting something already?"

"This is all news requests, Hawke. We need to know things, and we need to know them fast. Elf mentioned a letter from your little tin can brother?"

Fenris took out the letter and put it on the pile of Varric's papers. The three of them gathered around the desk as the dwarf was quickly scanning Carver's pointy handwriting.

"Cullen will be Knight Commander," said Aedale. "He's been leading the Templars for a while now. People trust him, and they've been trusting him with things they wouldn't tell Meredith. He won't give pursuit, Kirkwall will be more important."

"No, that's what _Aveline's_ going to do." Varrik pushed Carver's letter away and put a date on another clean sheet. "I'm not saying that the curly Templar is particularly keen on chasing us down, but he's not free to decide for himself. He's got the authority of the entire Chantry on his back, and he'll be forced to do whatever the Divine tells him to. Much like your brother."

Aedale's eyes narrowed as she snatched a clean piece of parchment from the desk. "I'd like to write up some letters of my own."

Varric nodded and shifted on the chair, making space for her. She perched at the edge of the seat, grabbing the other quill laying on the desk. Isabela eyed them both for a couple of seconds.

"Looks like you both got to the boring part. I'll be making sure we're ready to set sail whenever you're done. Come on, Fenris." She gestured at him. The elf hesitated, looking at Aedale at the desk; she nodded and turned her attention back to the desk. He followed Isabela out of the cabin, turning his head restlessly every couple of seconds.

"There is a fine line between being protective and stalking, you know," said Isabela in front of him. "She's right back in action. We'll be alright."

Fenris closed his eyes for a split moment. "You didn't see what happened."

-/-

 _Screams. Chaos. Mages. Templars. Blood. Smoke. In the panic and rubble, Hightown had turned into Seheron._

 _Pulling his sword out of the bloodied chest of a Templar warrior, Fenris saw Aedale cornered by three other knights. He cursed violently and ran after her, but she gestured at him to stay away, her face twisted in a grimace of pain; she made a wide flourish, and a deadly fan of ice sprang from her arm, freezing the Templars in place. He dodged the spiky icicles and charged at the enemies, his marking flaring up at the fresh singe of lyrium that surrounded them; Hawke yelled something incomprehensible, and a wall of fire enclosed her, charring the frozen bodies of the templars in split seconds. She kicked them down. The baked armours gave way easily and fell to her feet._

 _She looked terrifying: face bloody, eyes shining with the pure blue of the Fade. Fenris suppressed a wince and forcibly reminded himself that she could not be possessed. There was just one spirit of Vengeance running the streets of Kirkwall, and it was_ not _her._

" _I need to go to the Chantry," she said. He felt a gnawing fist clench on his insides._

" _Hawke, no."_

" _This is my mess. I need to see it."_

" _Don't do it." She wouldn't listen. She would never listen. He followed her as she made her way up the district, tearing through the rubble with effortless telekinetic blasts. They passed her home and he saw her hesitate; there wasn't much time._

" _Go to your house, Fenris. Get everything you can carry and meet me in Darktown with Varric."_

" _No."_

" _Fenris," he saw her face crack and an expression of true desperation floated to the surface before she shut it off. "We don't have time for this."_

" _I won't let you see it alone."_

 _She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. She turned back wordlessly and ran, and he followed. The people they were passing cowered from them, the healthy running, the injured crawling away._

 _She stopped abruptly. A small whimper escaped her lips and Fenris stared ahead, unsure what they were up against; after several seconds he saw a golden statue's hand under the rubble and understood what he was looking at._

 _The Chantry did not fall in Kirkwall; the Chantry fell_ on _Kirkwall. Whatever spell the mage used with the explosives, it had lifted the old Tevinter walls to the sky and rained it down like the wrath of the Maker himself. The hill of the Chantry had turned into a gigantic crater, with crushed foundations baring the very stone on which Kirkwall had been built._ _The rest of the monumental temple was scattered throughout half the Hightown: on its roofs, roads, fountains, and people._

 _He saw her shoulders shake and followed her line of sight. A head, cracked red like an overripe berry, was lying on the pavement; the rest of the body had been crushed under a huge piece of mosaic-adorned sandstone. A woman was perched up next to it, gently wiping the blood from his temple._

" _Jean Luc," said Hawke quietly. "Never did anything more adventurous in his life than selling a robe three sovereigns too expensive."_

 _The woman raised her head at the sound of Hawke's voice, and Fenris recognised Dulci de Launcet – the Orlesian mother of the pathetic blood mage hopeful._

" _Champion! Help him, he's bleeding! Help me get it off him!"_

" _Lady Dulci," said Aedale gently, "There's nothing you can do for him now. He's passed away."_

" _Of course not! He's just unconscious! Jean Luc!" Dulci's hands clenched on the bloodied handkerchief. A wedding ring flashed on her finger and Fenris wondered how long she had been holding on to the affair._

" _I'm sorry," said Hawke in thickened voice. It was not the only body lying under the rubble, and Fenris wondered how many of them she knew._

 _Many. Perhaps everyone._

" _You witch!" shrieked Dulci, and Hawke recoiled at the unabated hatred in her voice. "This is all your fault! You were meant to protect us!"_

" _Shut your mouth, woman," growled Fenris. Dulci flinched back, pressing her frame against the rock._

" _And the brutes you keep around! Elves! Mages! If you weren't there, this wouldn't have happened! And Jean Luc… Jean Luc!…" She started weeping, with loud, pathetic sobs shaking her entire body._

" _I'm leaving, Lady Dulci," said Hawke quietly._

" _To the Void with you!" The woman was clutching at the dead man's head, shaking uncontrollably. "To the Void with all of you!"_

 _Hawke turned around and left without another word._

 _He followed her to the estate, fortunately undamaged by the blast, where they quickly grabbed provisions and gear. The fire was extinguished, the chandelier was dark and empty, and Oriana was hiding in the kitchen, clutching her lute like a lifeline; Hawke gave her a sack of gold sovereigns and told her to find Aveline. As the servant fled, Aedale descended to the armoury and emerged a couple minutes later, carrying every staff she owned._

" _We cannot take them all, Hawke."_

" _I don't intend to." Before he could react, she dropped them all in a pile and ignited it._

-/-

"She burned her staves?" Isabela looked at him incredulously as she was pulling out the anchor. "Even the one that she got from that Warden prison after her dad? Help me out with this one."

"All of them." Fenris grabbed the line and fished out the anchor with ease. Isabela took it from him and started tying a knot on its rope. "She burned through the mansion floor."

The pirate tsked disapprovingly. "I would've found some better usage for that carpet."

"So did we," Fenris flashed a quick smile, "a long time ago."

Isabela giggled. "You had sex in front of the fireplace! How classy. At least Orana got some action to watch."

Fenris' face darkened as he thought about the elven girl in Kirkwall. "I can only hope Aveline will treat her right. Not all former slaves are well-equipped to the life on the run."

"She'll be fine, she's learnt a lot over the last three years. I almost made her swear, once."

"What did she say?"

"Shit."

"That doesn't really count."

"No, this shit. This shit, shit." Isabela shook the rope loose and started tying the knot again. "What did Hawke do after she'd burned through the carpet?"

"We moved to Darktown."

-/-

 _If Hightown was crushed over with the Chantry, Darktown was crushed over with Hightown. The rubble of the upper districts, falling on sheds and people of the Undercity, was wreaking havoc; every other minute another loose boulder or a piece of debris was rumbling through the stench-ridden maze of the unstable air bridges and paths of the poor district. As they emerged from the Hawke wine cellar, several arrows shot at them on sight; Hawke charred the bandits in seconds and they moved in, making their towards the water through chaos and fighting._

" _The Chantry fell! The Chantry fell!" A wild screaming followed the exclamation and Hawke turned back to see a Circle apprentice, her robe so dirty and torn that she'd had to be in hiding for a long while. Red scars covered her arms and forearms._

" _Brace yourself!" yelled Hawke and Fenris ran to her translucent protective shield. A wave of raw power shook the stones of Darktown, tumbling yet more rubble down its paths. The blood mage raised her arms and laughed, mad with either power or victory._

" _Champion! Celebrate with me! This is the world you've fought for us to get!"_

" _This is nothing like the world I wanted!" Hawke sent a fiery blast at her and the mage faltered; but then she rose again, eyes glazing over with the sheer power of blood._

" _Traitor! What do you want now? This is what they made us, this is what_ you _made us, you should join me! We've got freedom, we're free, Champion, we're free!"_

" _Fenris, watch out!"_

 _He stepped aside on instinct and a second later a demon rose up from the spot he'd stood, its roaring flaming form looming over him. He phase-shifted through it, slashing its head with a powerful swing; the demon shrieked and ran after him._

" _I'll take the mage!" As he ran, an icy spell fell on the demon's flames, freezing him in a terrifying form. Hawke raised her arms and called on the Void, and it opened; Fenris shuddered as he felt his markings flaring up at the raw magic flying out of this air, the flames and lightning alike. He saw her in front of him as he charged on the blood mage, and there she was, her face twisted and blood-splattered, her hair lighting up with electricity, her hands shining with white-hot fire: a Champion of the very Void._

 _He thrust the final blow, tearing through the bones to the heart. The blood mage fell dead to his feet, and the demons turned to ashes._

 _But Hawke didn't stop._

 _He drew back, watching as flames and lightning bolts poured and poured through the air, charring the stone and wood of Darktown's remains, the flames circling through the air and exploding as they touched the ground. There was nothing to stop it. He realised with terrible clarity that there was nothing_ he _could do to stop it._

 _What could he do that the Blight, the Qunari, and an army of mages and Templars couldn't?_

" _Hawke," he called through the firestorm._

 _An incomprehensible yell answered him from the eye of the storm and the flames started swirling like a tornado, lightning crackling at its heart. Fenris clenched his fists._

" _Hawke, we have to move on."_

" _Not before I burn this Maker-forgotten city to the ground." Her voice was the very flames, white-hot and verging on the edge of insanity._

" _It is already burning! You need to come with me now. Please, Hawke." He felt his voice crack. "You can't give in now. Not after all this. Not to me."_

 _Silence followed, long enough that he started wondering whether she'd heard him in the thrum of the flames._

 _And then a fiery blast tossed him backwards and against the wall, so powerful that he lost his breath and vision for a split second._

 _Hawke was cowering at the heart of a charred crater._

 _He walked towards it and helped her up without a word. Turning her face away, she accepted his hand._

 _-/-_

"She lost it?"

"She did."

Isabela was untying the knots on fenders in stunned silence. After a long while, she asked hesitantly:

"Should you be telling me that?"

Fenris stared at the horizon glumly. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I cannot…" He trailed off. "I cannot help her, Isabela. I don't know how."

The pirate sighed. "Well, shit. Out of all the people to confide in, you chose the most useless one. What do you expect me to say? Screw her brains out until she gets better? Go for it. Maybe I even get to watch."

He shrugged. "You're a woman. You've been with women, you might understand them. I took my chances."

"Again, that just proves that I can give wonderful sex advice. Won't give you much good here, sorry. I'm not good with meaningful stuff." She finished untying the fenders and started securing them once again, this time with a loose, easily undoable knot. "Just… talk to her."

"Isabela." A corner of his lip raised in a bitter half-smile. "She's just gotten from a political leader to a wanted criminal, most of the people she knew in Hightown are now dead, and this is all by something she helped with. You think _talking_ is going to help?"

"You'd be surprised." She shrugged. "You're going to mock my advice, don't ask for it."

"That wasn't-" Fenris trailed off. Then he sighed and sat down next to her, mimicking her movements on the fender ropes. "Apologies. I did try… talking."

"It's not how you do it."

"How do I do it, then?"

"Pass the end of the rope around the lifeline… this thing here." She pointed at the tight rope above the bulwark. "Over the standing end, now… not under it, _over…_ back around the lifeline again. That's a clove hitch."

He nodded at her. In silence, they moved around for a while, readjusting the fenders so the ship would not chaff against the pier.

"Bit lower. You don't want them popping up."

"How do I make her understand this is not her fault?" Fenris blurted out, louder than he had intended. He looked back nervously, but nobody seemed to be on the upper deck. "I… find it difficult. I never wished for it to happen, but neither did she. She is a victim of the mage, just like every other man and woman of Kirkwall."

"When I was sailing off with the relic," said Isabela quietly, "I was telling myself the same thing, you know. That I needed it more than some Qunari did. And even if something bad happened, it would be on my head, right? But it wasn't. She took it. And everybody saw that she did."

"Are you saying that _she_ makes people think she's responsible for that?"

"All I'm saying is that if they needed someone to take responsibility, she'd step up."

He shook his head. "All those years…" he said in a low voice, focusing on fumbling gracelessly with the rope. "We… _I_ have been doing the same. And so did he."

"Don't think about it."

"It's all _his_ fault. And she let him go free." He pulled the end of the rope so hard that the fender sprang up, splashing the starboard earnestly.

Isabela raised her eyebrows. "You're making her wet."

"What?" Fenris turned to her abruptly.

"The ship. You're making the ship wet." She giggled to herself as he rolled his eyes with an annoyed huff. "Hah! That was a nice one."

"I've had enough," grumbled Fenris and stood up. "I'll be below deck if you need me."

"Avast, sailor!" she called after him. "I thought you wanted to meet the crew?"

"No, I did not."

"Wait, I'll say that again. I thought you wanted to see how easily you could slaughter the entire crew if they mutinied?"

Fenris hesitated. That did sound appealing.

"Come on, there's nothing to do here anyway, and won't be until we set sail. And they play Diamondback."

"Fine," he relented after a long moment.

Isabela clapped her hands and jumped straight over the lifeline onto the pier. "Great-ho! Tavern awaits, then."

He cast one last passing glance at the captain's quarters before he followed her into the village.

 **-/-**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I lied! There's *NO* Varric in this one. Mostly because it completely ran out of control. I'm just sitting here, thinking 'time to write up some serious plot progression', and suddenly there's this bonding time between Fenris and Isabela. Cool, I guess?

But there's definitely going to be Varric in the next one. Girl scout's honour.


	4. Making plans

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part I: ON THE RUN**

 **Chapter 4: Making plans**

The list of names was long, but she knew it was far from finished.

"This is self-torture, Hawke. Even I don't write so pointlessly painful things."

"Maybe because you've never been responsible for a terror attack," she said with a big, incredibly false grin. "It's a new experience."

"Evidently. Seems to make you lose track of reality, too." Varric tapped his quill at a name on her piece of parchment. "Emile de Launcet? You don't even know if that kid is dead."

"I sent him to the Circle, Varric. Which is the Gallows. And I'm pretty sure that if he had been alive, his mother would be more concerned about looking for her son than going mad from grief over the body of a dead lover."

"Not necessarily. But then again, what do I know about women?"

"Just about enough to effectively manipulate the demographic. Who's that… Cassandra here?"

"Just some admirer sending in really crappy fanfiction to _Swords and Shields_. Although if that's a true surname here, she's in line for the throne of Nevarra."

"What?" Aedale choked with laugher. "Let me see!"

"Look at this. _Pentaghast._ That's a royal name, Hawke."

"She's made it up," ruled Aedale authoritatively.

"You sure? It wouldn't be a first member of the royal family reaching out."

"Yeah, but the King of Ferelden was here for me about Meredith, and this is you about your rubbish romance series. Although _this one_ is probably more interesting." She picked up a finished letter bearing his concise, angular signature. " _Dearest Bianca…_ "

"Hey! You put that down." Varric snatched the letter from her hand and put it on the bottom of the pile. "What I do to my crossbow is my business only."

"Except it's not a crossbow, is it?" Aedale stopped his hand.

Varric glanced at her for a long while and, finally, sighed. "Not here and not now, Hawke. And especially not with you going nuts over the Chantry."

"I'm fine. What was that girl's name again?"

"No, you're not." He tapped the list of names again. "You're making the list of the people you think you've killed, while bantering about my fanbase. This is your mother all over again."

Aedale's eyes narrowed. "You don't want to bring my mother into this."

"And why not? You're mourning, Hawke. And you're crap at that. Especially that this time this is after the entire city."

"I am _fine,_ Varric."

"Do you even listen to yourself saying that?" Varric put the quill down and looked her straight in the eye. "Because I don't buy that, and you don't buy that yourself, and if that paranoid look on his face was any indication, the elf doesn't either."

A long pause followed. From outside, she could hear the low, rasping tone of Fenris' voice, alternating with Isabela's short exclamations. She couldn't make out the words, but it sounded peaceful enough.

"It's okay to hurt," said Varric quietly.

"Well, fuck it." She closed her fists and fire blossomed on them, spreading along her head as she squeezed her temples violently. "I hurt, Varric, I fucking hurt. Is that what you wanted to hear? Can we move on now?"

"No, _you_ can move on, and maybe move away from the papers while you're at it?" He pushed the parchments away from her fire-covered arms. Aedale breathed deeply, inhaling and exhaling in slow huffs. The flames died down slowly.

"Should I have stayed with the templars?" she asked, suddenly vulnerable.

"They would've killed us all, Hawke."

"No, before that." She shook her head. "When Meredith asked me to fight with her, should I have stayed? Would it have changed things? Maybe it wouldn't have meant running for all of us… I can't ask Fenris this. He said it would be a mistake from the beginning."

"Regardless of what the elf thinks of it, it wouldn't have made a difference. She was crazy, Hawke. She turned against her own men. There was nothing you could've done to prevent that." Varric pushed another letter towards her. "This is from Cullen. An urchin brought it to me after just before Isabela and I boarded. Told me to give it to you."

Aedale blinked several times.

"It took you that long to get to it?"

Varric shrugged. "Wanted to see how you were holding up first."

"Maker's tits, Varric. You sure do take your time." She snatched the envelope out of his hand and tore it impatiently. Cullen's handwriting – sharp, angular and soldier-like in every sense – was short and concise.

" _Champion_ ,

 _You have made your decision and I regret to say that I will not be able to provide your safety should you wish to return, whatever I might think myself. I do not know what role you played in the Chantry plot, but since you've decided to defend the mages, there is one thing only I ask of you: keep them safe. They are as much a danger to everything around them as they are to themselves._

 _The envoy to the Divine has been sent and everything is in her hands now. Maker bless you, serah Hawke._

 _Acting Knight-Commander Cullen Rutherford_

"Hah!" Aedale punched the air victoriously. "He _is_ Knight-Commander now. Told you."

"Screw the obvious, what's new?" Varric put the letter down on the desk and they both hunched over it. "Well, I'd be a nug's uncle."

"Not too hostile, isn't it? Rare for a Templar these days." Aedale scribbled another name of her list. _Ser Thrask._

"Stop it, Hawke. Your self-loathing is giving me headache." Despite her protests, Varric took the list away and put it at the bottom of his pile. "This is actually really, really good news we've got in this letter."

"That being?" She shot him a dirty look. "Obviously he wants me to look after the mages, and therefore there are mages to look after. I had hoped that would be the basic answer, not a happy surprise."

"No, your title. He addressed you as the Champion, Hawke. You haven't been stripped of it yet."

"Could you even do that?" She looked at the letter doubtfully. "I thought it's not something to be lost."

"It doesn't depend on money or birth or marriage, you're right. But it _can_ be lost, and there's little that we could do in that case." Varric started writing again, this time with renewed energy. "But the leaders of Kirkwall still recognise you. You're still a Champion."

Aedale raised a brew. "And that, outside from an annoying dinner party that I will be invited at, would mean…?"

Varric rolled his eyes. "You never read that _History of Free Marches_ I lent you, didn't you."

"Oh, I just couldn't." She batted her eyelashes. "I was too busy, you know, actually _being_ a Champion to read about how to be one."

"It's not what you are, but what you are to the people." Varric turned to her, his eyes glazing over slightly as his voice turned a little bit more melancholic. Aedale grinned, sensing a story coming. "This title is not a mark of honour. It's not given as a sign of moral superiority. It's a right of sweat and blood poured into the very land you live in, a testimony of deeds that does not need recognition but sparks reverence instead. It's leadership in times of turmoil, and a grasp on the neck of Destiny itself that makes you a Champion, and whether you are loved of feared, you change the lives that you touch forever."

Aedale was quiet for a long while. "So, to recap," she said conversationally after the dwarf looked at her with eager eyes, always the sucker for compliments, "I _can_ be loved _and_ feared, right?"

"Don't see why not."

"Then this is what I shall be." She smiled dangerously, but her face fell quickly. "Do I live up to the hero you make me into, Varric? The grasp on the neck of Destiny, is it for better or for worse? The… change I wring on people?"

"You are one hell of a trouble magnet, Hawke, that's for sure. Maybe that's just what destiny means." He put his hand on her shoulder, wringing the arm upwards uncomfortably, and she shrunk into the chair to look him in the eye on an even level. "But everything you've done, you've done for Kirkwall and for all those poor sodders that are miserable enough to live there. And that's what makes you a Champion."

"Well, it seems I still have a duty to the people of Kirkwall," said Aedale after a pause, voice filled with strange finality. "We'll look for the mages now."

"I had a feeling you'd say that." Varric grinned as he passed her several envelopes that he'd already written up. One to Ostwick, one to Starkhaven, and one to Cumberland; all addressed to the Circles of Magi.

"From the Champion of Kirkwall to the First Enchanters."

She grinned back at him and pushed another handful of envelopes, dedicated to Jainen and Lake Calenhad in Ferelden. "Father had friends there. I haven't spoken to those people since I babbled at them as a toddler, but that's a start."

"Well, I have only _heard_ about most people from Cumberland, so you're still one babble closer."

"So!" She clasped her hands. "Brilliant. Kirkwall recognises my authority as a Champion, as so will the Free Marches, then. Let's just not go anywhere near Orlais, okay?"

"You got it. The food is terrible there anyway." Varric cringed, and Aedale wondered whether he thought of the cheese, or of Duke de Montfort's terrible wyvern.

"The priority is to band together the mages from the Gallows. They shouldn't be particularly difficult to find, most of them are people who never lived a free existence before. They won't know how to split the group, or hide."

"Easy. Have you _seen_ a mage hide, Hawke?"

"I'll have you know that I avoided pursuit quite nicely just days ago, _smartass._ " She nudged the dwarf as he snickered. "Meanwhile, we get as much info as we can. Dock in Ferelden, get your finances done, let the king know what became of Meredith, spread the word. We'll see whether we can relocate the Kirkwall mages to Ferelden circles without much friction. Worst case scenario, we ask Aveline to sneak in and shatter the phylacteries back in the Gallows."

"You know as well as I that this is not going to happen."

"A mage can dream, huh?" She hunched over the desk, sorting out the envelopes. "We can do this, Varric. We just need to be really, really careful, and we can do this."

"One more thing." Varrik coughed pointedly and tapped his quill at the last paragraph of the Knight-Commander's letter. "One more person, I should say. Pointy hat, lots of wrinkles. Used to send people on crusades against magic."

"We'll deal with the Divine when she makes her choice. No point in obsessing something beyond our control."

"Exactly." Varric's hand covered hers on the desk and Aedale froze in place. "You didn't kill those people, Hawke. You had no knowledge and no agenda. So burn that list and let's move on." He withdrew his hand hastily. "And don't ever make me hold your hand again. That was incredibly awkward."

"Yeah, I was just about to mention that."

"Can you imagine what your grumpy love interest would have done to me if he saw that?" Varric cringed, possibly imagining the feeling of disembowelment. Aedale grinned.

"Can _you_ imagine what your semi-automatic letter-receiving crossbow would to _me?_ "

"All sorts of terrible things, I assume. Bianca can be incredibly protective of her fine piece of a man." He rose from the chair, leaving her to enjoy the entirety of the seat for herself. "I'm more or less set on the letter-writing front, I'll go fetch the team and find messengers. Finish off and we can set sail. Ugh," he winced, "I'm not looking forward to _that_ again."

"Did you try strong spirits? Apparently they're good for sea sickness."

"Don't work on dwarves. If they're meant as a knock-out, a punch in the face would do just fine instead, you know."

"What were you saying about holding my hand in front of Fenris?" She snickered.

"I said a punch, not dismemberment. See you in a moment, Hawke. And I don't want to see that list anywhere in the ship when I get back."

"You won't," said Aedale quietly as the door shut behind him. She put the list of the dead from under the pile, carefully folded it in quarters and slipped it under her robes, close to the heart.

 **-/-**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** It was pointed out that my Cassandra mention was out of character. But IS IT?

(If you're reading it, by the way, I'd be very very happy if you leave a comment. A little feedback goes a long way, and I'll love you to the moon and back!)


	5. Responsibility

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part I: ON THE RUN**

 **Chapter 5: Responsibility**

The ship set sail at dawn, vanishing in the thick fog. No one watched its departure, and no one followed.

Isabela wasn't surprised when she learnt that they were to sail to Denerim. She nodded, smirked under her breath, and said something about electricity that Fenris did not understand, and Aedale blushed furiously at. Beyond that, the days were quiet; outside from occasional barking of commands, or a crude shanty, the deck remained unanimously governed by the mist and soft, continuous whisper of the sea.

The men and women in the crew were rough and simple, but they knew their trade well. Out of more boredom than real interest, Fenris started loitering on the upper deck, watching the upkeep of the ship until he was called in to help. After the first day it became a habit of his, and the crew members quickly warmed up to the stoic land rat with a surprisingly strong grip.

"Nice ink," said Darvin once, as they were playing cards behind the captain's quarters at the stern, sheltered from the onslaught of wind. Darvin was a big, bulky man with a scarred face and small, beady black eyes, Isabela's first mate. He examined the white lines on Fenris' arms and neck thoughtfully. "What's that made with?"

"Lyrium."

"Hah! Good one. " The man gave a short bark of laughter. "I'll show you something." He'll pulled off his shirt and proudly presented a crude tattoo of a red high dragon spitting fire across his entire chest. "I gave a month's pay for that."

"Was it worth it?" asked Fenris, despite himself interested in the answer. There was something bizarrely proud in a man choosing his own markings.

The sailor shrugged. "You tell me. It's the age of the Dragon, aye? At least they'll know when I died if they dig me up one day." He pulled the shirt back down. "The dwarf says you lot fought dragons. Got any scars?"

"A broken arm."

"Huh." The sailor shrugged, visibly disappointed at the mundaneness of it, and put his cards down. "Queen-Priestess. That's forty five." They continued playing in companionable silence, passing minor coins to one another, until Isabela called them both for the watch shift. Fenris found it strange, and strangely comforting, how easy his tattoos fell into place on the ship; colourful lines and crude drawings on men's skin were expected, and worn with pride. It seemed that in their eyes, he wasn't wearing a threatening weapon, but a mark of a sailor. It filled him with bizarre calm.

He eased into the simple rhythm of the sea, similarly as he had finally eased into the rhythm of the city; his feet soon found their balance in the gentle rocking, sometimes turned into violent jerks, sometimes reduced to an almost complete stillness. The dark wood of the ship was worn but strong, obviously tended with care and attention, the metal greased, the linen clean, the horizon vast and empty and open. The air was crisp, frosty, making his blood run faster as he performed his daily routines in the small hours of the morning, the pale golden morning light piercing through the soft mist over the desk, and when he licked his lips he did not know whether it was salty moisture of the air, or his own sweat. It was a different kind of happiness than what he had found at Hawke's side; but it was a happiness nevertheless.

She was the only difficult part about the journey.

He'd see her, sometimes, sitting on the upper deck on the top of captain's quarters, legs crossed and eyes closed. If he moved to sit close, he would feel the throbbing aura of raw magic radiating from her skin, the lyrium lighting up in his veins like white-hot fire; then she'd sense him, reach out to touch him, and dismiss his sullen expression with a quip. The magic would withdraw, then, carefully folded beneath her skin, but the moment he walked away he could feel the air tingling with unspent power.

She'd talk to Varric more than she did to him, discussing people he never met and tossing about strange Fereldan names. It made him realise, for the first time in years, that the pride he took in ignoring politics was perhaps misjudged; years ago, an obedient slave would recite the names and allies of every magister in Minrathus, along with their lovers and political leanings. He kept away from the discussions and planning, confident enough that he would be asked should his input be required; in the end, Hawke always asked. But it seemed that he was more of use to Isabela than he was for them; and so he obliged, manning the sails and folding the ropes as he was told, moving across the deck in a careful pattern that allowed him to never lose sight of Hawke's small frame on the top of captain's quarters.

Whereas for him the perfect circle of empty horizon seemed open and free, for her it seemed to hide distant, impending danger. Several times, as he approached her in their cabin, he found her cowering in the corner in a twisted, uncomfortably bent position, her gaze fixed firmly on the line of water swaying across the bull-eye. She'd sit up as the sight of him, greet him cheerfully, and roll over the berth to curl up against him. But even her touch was empty, controlled, the magic under her skin carefully drawn back as opposed to the loose swirling aura of energy that had usually surrounded her.

Fenris found himself wishing it came back. There had been something undeniably _Hawke_ in the way the invisible currents of power had licked his body, something fickle and playful and ever so gentle; a sensation he had been so used to that it left a gaping hole in the intimacy between them. The touch was there, but it was hollow; it felt different, colder. A bitter irony, he thought, that _he_ of all men would crave his lover's magic. He tried to mention the topic several times, but he lacked the words or the conviction, and Hawke dismissed him almost half-heartedly.

The aura would come back when she fell asleep, a familiar twirl of capricious energy that sent his senses tingling. But it felt different, more frayed, as if the denial had a destructive effect on her inner power. A blazing torch of light, restricting itself to a match; she had no staff to channel the power either, and she hadn't practiced in days. And so the energy poured out, and the lyrium in his veins thrummed restlessly.

He found himself murmuring throaty lullabies in Tevene as she slept, digging out old, dusty memories from the days before slavery, before he got a new face and new name and new life; they felt like they belonged to another person, stripped off him and kept away for so long that he hardly recognised them as his own. Still, gentleness radiated from them, a feeling of bittersweet love and loss; he did not have many memories of gentleness to share.

" _Tu rei na, dore na,_ " he'd whisper, voice low and husky, with the moonbeams reflecting and splitting on the sea water through the bull-eye. A piercing, comforting thought, a sharp sense of relief as he'd found that memory in his mind, when they had been still fresh and new, soon after Hadriana had… soon after _Hadriana_. His mother's voice, soft fingers through his hair, and a painfully prophetic syllables: _it's not your fault, no shame._

He had overcome his own guilt. He hoped he could help her do the same.

On one of the quieter days, when the wind was scarce and the crew idle, he brought her a letter to proofread. It was a simple message to Donnic and Aveline, written with his still clumsy and graceless handwriting, but she gave him a proud smile and he felt his unease drift away. As she carefully read the parchment, shoulder to shoulder with him on their shared berth, he felt her aura ease into a familiar swirl; and for one shining moment, they were still in Kirkwall, sitting on the sofa with knees and thighs pressed close together, reading to one another the passages from Varric's outrageous adventure stores, and Fenris was _happy._

Then she read the final paragraph, and her aura snapped shut. He almost winced at the sudden loss and followed her eyes.

 _Now that the mages will be gone from Kirkwall, I hope that you can restore at least a semblance of peace._

He cursed his own stupidity. Of course, when he thought that, he did not include _her_ in that. "Hawke, I didn't mean-"

"I know what you meant, Fenris." Her voice was tired, resigned. "It's not me personally, it's magic in general. Believe me, I'm trying." She passed the letter back to him and retreated into her corner, turning her face to the bull-eye. "It's good writing. I'm proud."

He stood there, staring at her, at a complete loss.

"Hawke, please." He didn't know what he was begging for, but it had been a week of ignoring the silent despair that she had been nursing, and he could not bear it any longer. It could have been such a happy time, with them all on board at sea, and even the crew members sufferable; but for all his enjoyment of the mist, the light, and the quiet whisper of the sea, her misery was a constant, unmovable thorn in the side. And now he'd made things worse. "Please."

She looked at him, and his heart turned into a little icy pebble as he saw her empty eyes.

"What's the matter?"

"Don't shut me out."

"I thought we agreed on not doing that. I'm fine."

"You're strangling yourself with your own magic."

"I'm doing no such thing." She turned away, bringing her impassive gaze back to the bull-eye. Hot, acidic shame burnt in his throat.

" _Hawke._ "

"What do you want me to do, Fenris?" she spoke softly, but there was an underlying tremor in her voice that his ear latched onto. "I have to learn to control myself better. We've seen first-hand what exactly happens if a mage doesn't."

"You're already in control."

"Have you _seen_ me in Darktown that time? Was that control for you?" Her expression darkened, and for a split second Fenris was reminded of the violent spin of the white-hot flames. "I almost went full Orsino on you. Heck, I almost went full _Anders_."

His fists clenched violently, almost of their own volition, and his stomach lurked uncomfortably. Fenris took a deep, calming breath, but it did not help.

"Do _not_ joke about it."

"I'm not joking." And she sat there, in the corner, eyes empty, face blank, magic twisted and knotted under her skin, and Fenris could not form words.

"You're not… you were _not…_ " He'd sense it. He'd know it. He'd see the change, and the bright blue Fade-light, and the poisoned energy of the spirit, she didn't do it – her magic was hers and hers only, without a demon inside. It was _not_ true. It couldn't, it couldn't, it couldn't. Not Hawke. And yet he remembered the fury of the spinning firestorm, and since that she was – _different_ -

She saw his face and the sudden pain in her eyes made his stomach twist. "I'm not possessed, Fenris."

He released a breath he didn't know he had been holding. "Why would you ever say that, Hawke? That you are like Orsino, and _him?_ " He almost spat the last word. "You're nothing alike. Nothing."

"We've got a lot in common, surprisingly. Except that I dress better." Her gaze wandered back to the crumpled letter in his hand, and he felt the shame rise again in his throat, hot, sick, choking. _I made her one with them. I made her think that I-_

It was Hadriana all over again, his hot fury and enraged words, _what does the magic touch that it doesn't spoil,_ and her eyes, widening with shock and hurt, words she'd forgiven but he'd clung to the shame of the memory for long years.

It was _not_ going to happen again. Not while he still had her in front of him. "You're in control, and you're strong. You are nothing like them."

"You know what we have in common?" she said almost conversationally again, and he wanted to strangle her for the lightness in her voice, for the pretend-calm, for the way she'd tiptoe and skim over the hardest matters. He wanted to pin her down and hold till the fleeting smiles and jibes stilled into something concrete, a hard, solid source of pain he could fight. At least she'd been true before – over the fire in the Vinmark, and on the small twin bed in the forgotten fishing village.

But the next words turned his blood into ice.

"We made decisions, and people died. We didn't kill them, not directly, but they were on the way, you know? Like a toll necessary to get to the objective. The choice of the Champion."

 _Tu rei na, dore na._ „It's not your fault. There's no shame in erring."

She let out a sharp laugh. "It is when people are dead."

"People die, Hawke. You cannot claim responsibility for every death you come across."

"I claim responsibility for Anders."

He stilled, then. He had been wondering when _the mage_ would resurface in the conversation. He had suspected that was it – the solid source of all trouble.

"You're his victim, Hawke, as is the entire city. Nothing more."

"I encouraged him, Fenris. I listened to him speak about the mage revolution for years. I helped him find a press for his manifesto, I watched him turn radical, I was his _friend,_ and I should have-" Her face was white, piercing blue eyes fixed firmly on the bull-eye. "I should have seen that coming."

"You trust people too much."

She flashed an unexpected smile, piercing and sharp and painful. "Yes. I do. But that doesn't matter, because, you know, I'm a _mage,_ and a pretty powerful one at that, and I prided myself at knowing things. And I _knew_ that what Anders asked me to do was impossible."

The separation of spirits. The sela petrae and dragonstone. She hadn't taken him along that time, mostly because he had vehemently contested doing the mage any shady favours. A heavy _I told you so_ hung in the air, but he chose not to say it.

"There's no way a soul could be untangled after there has been a merging. That's the first thing about possession. And even if there somehow were a way, somehow, figured out in Tevinter or some other similarly shady place, it would be way more complicated than gathering ingredients for _explosives._ "

He looked at her in stunned silence. "You knew?"

"I suspected. I didn't _want_ to know, or ask. There could be a way, a dangerous Tevinter ritual with blowing the spirit out of your mind. Something. I chose to trust him. I wanted to make sure, after all this time, that he was still someone I _could_ trust." She flashed a pale smile. "And he, ah, blew it."

Fenris did not smile back. "You knew."

The smile slipped off her face, leaving her blank, empty. Even her eyes dulled, its shining blue giving way to something foggy and unfocused. "I knew."

He was at a loss again.

There was nothing he could say.

He nodded curtly and turned around, missing the way Hawke's eyes suddenly widened as she saw his turned back, her mouth broke open, a true terror on her face, hands scrambling to reach for something rapidly running out – and then a quiet click of the door separated them, and he left, crumbling the letter in his hand to torn shreds.

He had hoped that maybe the crunch of the paper could cover the pounding silence that followed, but he heard it all the way to the deck.

 **-/-**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I always had the impression that, during Anders' companion quest in Act III, if you play a mage Hawke, they are being either dumb or really, really dismissive of their own instincts. I mean, this is a known radical. And those are ingredients for a bomb. And as a mage, they should know that - along with the fact that undoing a possession is something that has never happened in the known history of Thedas, and *certainly* not by blowing stuff up. I mean... come on. If you ignore that many clues, then you'd better be prepared for consequences.

Sad, sad times.


	6. Trust issues

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part I: ON THE RUN**

 **Chapter 6: Trust issues**

 _Dear Aveline and Donnic-_

No. Wrong. Empty honorific. That was not how he'd speak to them, back in Kirkwall, when the world had not yet crashed around them, and they had been sitting at the Hanged Man, Aveline visibly uncomfortable with a pint in her hand, Donnic and Varric exchanging barrack stories both perhaps true and _definitely_ fictional, and Hawke – _Hawke –_

 _Aveline, Donnic, I hope this finds you safe and unharmed._ Yes, this is how he wrote it the first time.

She stopped coming out the cabin.

He broke after the first day and started wordlessly bringing her a tray with food. She accepted it, every time, with an incredibly fake pale smile, and when he came down in the evening to lay on the berth next to her, she'd pretend to sleep; but her aura was shut and clenched around her, and he did not need to see her face to know she was awake, and restless. He did not say a word.

 _She knew. She knew what the mage was planning, and she did nothing._ The knowledge sat heavy on his stomach, a sick, numbing feeling of betrayal.

A little, selfish, cowardly part of him was glad she would not emerge to the upper deck. At least on the surface, he could keep the calm; although it was becoming more and more difficult to drift off into a now-familiar routine of hoisting the sail, manning the helm, pulling the ropes, and playing cards in the down time, because the splinter of cold, icy pain woven into the very centre of his insides would not stop twisting.

She had known what she'd been helping the mage to accomplish. Had she thought about the consequences, about the very people that she was now mourning? Had she weighted their lives on the one hand, and then a chance of _the mage_ to be free of possession on the other, and had she made a – _we made decisions, and people died_ – a choice?

The practice was no longer enough to keep his mind off it, and so he started sparring with Isabela. A circle of sailors formed around them, cheering as they charged at each other with wooden rods; she spun and danced around him, the short dagger-sized sticks brushing against his greatsword-like rod every time he parred, and he slashed and slammed his makeshift weapon into the deck so hard that the ship would shake and tilt, and Isabela's yell " _Trim the boat!"_ would send half the crew back on the stern, the bow bobbing uncertainly, both of them panting heavily. He was not used to continuing the fight for so long - he'd kill the rouge quickly and move on to a heavily armed opponent – but there was a strange satisfaction in that frustration, as if disturbing the body would soothe the uneasy mind, or at least work in alignment with its own disturbance.

When Isabela moved to the captain's quarters, complaining about his excessive brutality, he'd find himself sparring partners amongst the crew. A warrior sailor named Marina – a small, broad-shouldered woman with a brown birthmark across her neck, her eyes glimmering dangerously as she offered him a duel – wielded a single heavy blade almost as effortlessly as he did, and he found a perverse pleasure in beating her into the ground with sheer force of the blow, breaking the makeshift wooden weapon in her hand on two long splinters. To his surprise, she did not stop for a second, but spun around him and slammed both pieces of the longsword into the back of his head.

He looked up to her from the ground, dazed; the cheering of the sailors so loud that it was almost deafening. She was short, dark-haired, and for a second he'd expected a familiar chirp, and a flash of healing magic to ease the pounding in his head.

"Good fight," said Marina instead, her voice deep and rather grave.

Fenris stood up, ignoring her extended hand, nodded sharply and disappeared below deck.

As usual, Hawke was pretending to sleep.

He stared at her impassively, drinking in the details of her small form that he'd known too well, imprinted on the inner side of his eyelids every time he closed his eyes; the long, dark, messy braid, the pale-white skin, the narrow shoulders, their sharp line turning into a gentle curve of a long, slim neck; and what was inside, underneath her skin, the keen and compassionate mind, the controlled rage of a firestorm, and endless, endless power.

He had fallen in love with a _mage_.

As he stepped into the cabin, his bruised head brushed against the doorframe and he hissed with pain. Hawke moved at this sight, turned towards him. His heart lurched at the sight of her face, then twisted into a hard painful knot as he looked away.

"Are you hurt?" Short, pointed syllables. He shook his head, speechless. His hands ached to touch her. She shifted towards the edge of the berth uncertainly, her fingers twitching with restless magic.

"Did you fight? I felt the boat shaking."

"It was just a spar," said Fenris, fixing his eyes on the bull-eye as he felt her gaze on his face. Hawke nodded, hesitated, and moved closer to him, squinting her eyes in pain as the sore muscles, clenched and unused for days, ached at the sudden movement. Fenris knew that pain back from Danarius' mansion, and for a second his heart shrank to a cold icy shard.

"Let me see your head."

"It's nothing."

"I-" She shuddered and withdrew her hand. "Okay. As you wish. I'm going to go to sleep now." Fenris felt a sudden urge to grab her by the shoulders, pull her, shake her out of the impasse, shake them _both_ out of that horrible, horrible stalemate that they had ended up in, because _real_ Hawke would not withdraw, _real_ Hawke would badger him until he'd actually give his head for examination, and _real_ Hawke would not – she'd _not –_ hide decisions that destroyed the city and people's lives in it.

Instead, he watched helplessly as she turned his back at him again, shoulders shaking slightly. "Goodnight, Fenris," she said evenly, but her voice was dead, and he felt the frustration and helplessness and _rage_ in his throat rise and crash like a caustic wave.

He turned around and slammed the door behind him.

The dwarf was waiting for him there.

"Elf," said Varric dangerously, his eyes narrowed and sharp, "I think we need to have a little heart to heart."

-/-

They were standing in the captain's quarters. Isabela, always the rouge, had followed her infallible intuition for trouble and wisely removed herself. The dwarf was pacing the room impatiently; Fenris stood in front of the desk, motionless and tense.

"Now," said Varric with a semblance of peace that did not seem to convince even himself, "What kind of screw-up did you just do, and how unfixable is it this time?"

"I did not do anything." Fenris fixed his impassive gaze in the desk. The documents there resembled a book sketch, if he were to guess. Was that what the dwarf was doing throughout the journey?

Varric snorted. "And I'm the bloody King of Orzammar. You're the only one that talks to her these days, elf. What happened? And I don't care if this is private, because if your private things get the Champion of Kirkwall out for the count, then we're _all_ in deep shit."

Fenris clenched his fists at the title. "This is not private."

"What is it, then? Come on, elf, spill it. The sooner we know what this is, the sooner we fix it."

"Fix it?" Fenris let out a short bark of cold, bitter laughter. "Fix the city, then, if you're capable. This is on her, Varric. She knew it was going to happen."

The dwarf's eyes narrowed to slits. " _What._ "

"She knew the ingredients for the mage were explosives, and she still decided to help him get them. She chose _him_ over everything else." When he finally said it, pronouncing the words he had been churning for days, he felt strange heaviness. The secret was out, and so was Hawke's fault. And yet she had pronounced her own guilt for days, and no one had believed her, _he_ had not believed her. ( _"You are the only thing worth salvaging from that city" - "Tell that to the dead behind the Veil",_ she had said. And yet it did not make what he'd said less true. _)_

 _Tu rei na, dore na._ He swallowed with difficulty, ignoring the sting of pain as the icy shard in his chest twisted again, violently.

"Did she tell you that?" Varric's voice seemed to come from a great distance.

"She did."

"And you told her what you just said to me?"

"She knows what I think."

The dwarf swung a fist to his face.

A sharp stab of pain pierced his already aching head. He stumbled back, markings flaring angrily; but Varric was unarmed, and he bore the true, unguarded expression of pure fury.

"You _moron,_ " hissed the dwarf, "you absolute nug-humping _idiot_!" He stepped forward until they were chest to chest and Fenris was forced to look down. "She's grieving after that city, and you told her she was _responsible_ for everything that happened?!"

"She is," said Fenris coldly.

Varric slammed his fist against the desk. "That's what _she_ thinks. Even if she hadn't brought Blondie that bomb, he'd sooner or later pay off anyone else, and _the exact same thing_ would happen, you blithering idiot! You were meant to help her along, not crush everything, because, correct me if I'm wrong, apparently you _cared-_ "

He stopped suddenly mid-tirade. "Ah, this is it," he drawled. "You think she preferred to blow up the city than give up on Blondie. You utter _fool_."

Fenris stood in front of him, refusing to look the dwarf in the eye.

"She should not have trusted the mage."

"And is it about him, or about you? Because, and let me make this really clear for you," Varric clenched his fists, "that second chance policy Hawke's got going on, that's a really good thing. She chooses to trust people. And give them another go at things they've screwed up before. And you might know, because if it weren't for that, _you_ wouldn't be here, you sorry shit-face of a partner!"

Fenris froze.

Everything, the talking dwarf included, shrank to a crystalline ice. Only the pounding in his ears increased, that drumming silence, Hawke's silence, after he had closed the door behind him.

Now, and three years before.

After Hadriana.

A familiar burn started in his throat, sick, hot feeling, a creeping sense of inevitability, of something precious breaking hopelessly, and shame, shame, shame, shame, _shame._

He had thought the mage had not deserved her trust. That the trust had been doomed to begin with. That she was to bear the consequences of granting it so hopelessly. That would be the responsibility that he'd give himself; a punishment for trusting a mage.

And yet the trust she's had in him was hopeless too.

(Three years _._ Of waiting, and hoping, and trusting, and he'd never given her a reason. _Three years_.)

He'd left her waiting again, now, behind the doors slammed shut by his own frustration and ignorance and _the dwarf was right, he was a moron –_ and what Isabela said, when she'd run away and left her to deal with the mess that'd stayed behind in Kirkwall, she said that Hawke took responsibility.

He became distinctly aware that Varric has stopped yelling at him. He refocused his aching eyes on the dwarf.

"Maker's flaming ass-cheeks, you're awful at this." Varric pursed his lips. " _Now_ you realise that she's not a radical bomber? You're supposed to be there for her, elf. She would be, for you."

He knew that was true.

The dwarf looked at him, opened his mouth, and then closed it without saying anything. A rare sight, he thought; or maybe less rare, because for all his constant prattle Varric knew his words too well to say too much.

Fenris fixed his gaze in his feet, hot shame burning in his stomach and throat. He hated it; he hated that he'd have to be _told_ that his lover is not responsible for her grief, and that what made her break over the magehad, years ago, made her break over _him._

It was the same Hawke, the same persistent, stubborn Hawke that refused to give up on Isabela when the Qunari attacked, and him when the slavers came - and the mage, when the world was blown to flaming shreds.

"Don't blame her for her choices, elf. You are one of them."

Fenris cast a passing glance at the dwarf and left without a word. His throat was too thick to make a sound anyway; even if he could, he would not know what to say. He needed to get down to her, he needed to explain, he needed to make her understand that his fears and doubts and helplessness and rage would never, ever change the way she was a shining beacon of hope in his life, and he needed to… apologise. She'd forgive him. She had waited for him for too long to break now.

But he'd never lost faith in her before, and a sickly burn of uncertainty started eating through his stomach. He crossed the deck with several long strides, staring at the horizon with unseeing eyes; he needed to think, and gather his thoughts first. The pounding headache did not help, and neither did the rising swelling on his cheek. The dwarf hadn't been holding back.

Isabela looked at him from the helm, caught the look on his face and stayed put. The sailors had gathered behind the captain's quarters, as usual; he could hear absent-minded bidding and squabbling for coppers, and it helped him gather his thoughts. Simple, honest life. Darvin the first mate was playing an harmonica; the crewman had been trying to teach him that as well as the cleat hitches, anchor hitches, and bowlines, but whereas he'd picked up the knots easily, he'd vehemently refused to take up music.

The burning in his stomach eased slightly.

A click of the door sounded from behind him, and he wondered whether Varric would join him at the bulwark to add to his misery. He kept his head straight as he heard light feet approaching, determined not to turn around until he was forced to.

"Fenris."

He stilled. Then, slowly, he turned until he was facing her.

Hawke had left the cabin.

Her hair was in disarray and her face was paler than the last time he had seen her outside, but she was standing straight, chin raised high, and his eyes greedily followed the lines of her throat before he sobered and looked at her face. It was like a cold chill to realise that he could not read it.

It was the face of the Champion, strong and unyielding. It had been… almost two weeks since he'd seen that face. He opened his mouth to ask, to apologise, to beg, to try and explain, but no sound came out.

Hawke tossed him one of the wooden rods she was holding. "Spar with me."

 **-/-**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** My working title is: "Chapter 6, In which Hawke stops being a whiny little drama queen, but Fenris doesn't quite catch up".


	7. Confrontation

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part I: ON THE RUN**

 **Chapter 7: Confrontation**

He caught the rod in a reflex, then stepped back. "I don't want to hurt you, Hawke."

"Good." She lowered her knees, grasping the long stick not at the end, but in the middle, an instinct he knew came from years of staff practice. "I wouldn't want to cause any lasting damage either. Defend yourself."

She couldn't be serious.

But perhaps six years at her side could have taught him how pointless that thought was.

She took a long swing at him and he stepped back instinctively, dodging the clumsy blow. "Hawke," he growled. "I am a lyrium warrior trained against magisters. _I don't want to hurt you._ "

"Really?" She swung her makeshift staff again and this time he was forced to block. "And I am one pissed off mage. See how that works out."

Another blow pushed him further back, his feet verging at the edge of the deck. "Don't."

"Don't tell me what to do." She charged at him once more and for a split second the soles of his feet found only air behind him; he swayed uncertainly and for that one sharp moment his instinct took over. The wooden rod cut the air, flying to her throat.

She blocked.

"Now that's more like it." Her eyes glimmered dangerously as she closed the distance between them even further, forcing him to move away from the bulwark and to the middle of the bow. On the edge of his vision Fenris saw the mabari waiting at the main doors, eyes wary, ears flat. He hadn't seen the beast for several days – Vindr hated ships.

Hawke took advantage of his distraction and another blow reached dangerously close before he parried it. She still hadn't used any magic, and her aura was still snapped shut, but he doubted she could continue hacking at him for too long – she had stayed inside for days, and barely moved for all that time. Either she was going to release her powers and burn down the ship, or she'd give up out of sheer exhaustion.

Not that Hawke ever would.

They were circling each other in the middle of the ship between the masts, Hawke launching short, violent attack every couple of steps, and he parrying them with increasing weariness. "Hawke, I-"

"Spare me the bullshit," she hissed. He stopped mid-word. "We're fighting now."

 _Violence, then. I do deserve it._ If she wanted to take it out on him with sheer force, they did not have to make it into a fight. He stilled, closed his eyes and waited for the next blow to hit home.

None did. When he opened his eyes, Hawke was holding the rod inches away from his cheek, her face an expression of fury he had not seen for a long, long time.

" _Fight. Me,_ " she growled, her shining eyes boring into his. "If you can't respect me in combat, what respect _do_ you have for me?"

 _Every._ She withdrew her rod and stared at him with narrowed eyes. A sickly heat was spreading through his stomach – he'd failed her, and somehow now he was failing her again.

He took a measured blow at her shoulder.

She deflected, as he knew she would, and spun her staff around his weapon, hitting him in the temple. He'd expected the blow, but his head had been heavy and aching since the earlier spar, and he winced painfully.

"Don't make it easy for me." A short push of the rod, and he gasped for air, the wood hitting his windpipe. Instincts kicked in again, and he swung his weapon across her chest, shoving her hard to the side. If it were his greatsword, he would have slashed off her arm.

Instead, they both stumbled backwards. Behind them, the sailors had found themselves a better sundown entertainment than cards.

"Is he sparring with the Champion?"

"That's her, alright. Ain't she a mage?"

He could feel Isabela's eyes boring into his back.

Hawke hit first, a nasty sideways blow. He dodged and supressed his instincts, screaming at him to strike at her undefended stomach. Instead he sidestepped another blow, quick rather than strong, and moved to her flank.

He heard a dismissive snort. "Bah! He's pulling his punches."

"Mind you, that's his lover."

"Who cares? All bets are off in a spar."

"Stop humiliating me," hissed Hawke through gritted teeth as they clashed again, wood against wood. "I _will_ hold my own against you, magic or no magic."

He tightened his lips in frustration. "I'll kill you."

She laughed in his face, a bright, merry, cheerful sound, accompanied by a sharp staccato of quick blows. "You're welcome to try."

"Hawke-"

"An ogre." _Slash._ He stepped back. "The Blight. Stone wraiths. Templars. Qunari. A fucking _dragon._ " Each punctuated with a blow. He knew that anger, that white-hot fury that was so far away from her cheerful chirps that it went all the way around and reached it from the other side. "And you think _you'll_ be the one to actually end me?"

He lowered his rod. "That's what I fear," he said in low voice, through thick and aching throat. Not in combat. But by crumbling trust, imperfect love, faith and support not given when needed the most –

"Well, check your ego then," she growled and charged at him again. "Because I. Can. Do. _Better."_ The makeshift staff spun in her hands and she tore through his defence, shoving him hard in the chest, and not stopping there. He saw a blow flying to his head and dodged a split second too late; the rod grazed his sore temple. He grabbed her weapon forcefully and stopped it in its tracks.

Hawke kicked him.

He blocked her foot over his own rod and tripped her. She wobbled, but stayed up; she swung the staff the other way and hit him hard in the jaw. Wincing, he squeezed hard at her wrist. The staff fell to the ground, but so did Hawke; she crouched and grabbed it back, springing back up like a cat. She flanked him again and took a swing at his right side; Fenris blocked it with ease and punched her hard in the stomach.

She groaned, and for a long second he felt the crushing guilt fall on his head like a hammer – until she slammed the staff into him, hard enough that he let out a painful grunt. "You _will_ respect me," she said in a low voice. She panted slightly.

He was dimly aware of the cheering around him that had followed her blow.

"You don't have to do this, Hawke. We-"

"I want to." Another blow. He parried. He noticed her arms were shaking, and his lyrium tingled with irregular, weak stirs of magical energy in the air. Her smothered aura quivered restlessly. "I will not apologise for what I've decided, Fenris!"

"You don't need to." He locked their weapons together and dragged her close, blocking a knee flying to his groin. She recoiled quickly and grabbed the end of her rod, using the length of the weapon to put some distance between them.

 _Mistake._ One powerful blow was enough to force the stick out of her hand. She hesitated as he advanced towards her, his own weapon outstretched; she could either risk crouching down for the weapon and closing the distance between them, or lead him away.

She risked. In the second she bent down to pick up the staff, he struck a heavy blow to her side. Hawke fell to the ground, scrambling to get her balance back, but he rested the end of his rod on her chest, with just enough pressure to keep her down.

She was breathing heavily, palms clenching and unclenching in powerless anger.

"I'm sorry," he said helplessly, as if he were the one lying on the ground under the weapon. Her eyes narrowed.

"Spare me."

"I… was wrong about you."

"Yes. Yes, you were." In a split second the air from his lung was gone - he was crashed against the mast with full force of a powerful psychic blast. The wood on her chest stood aflame and charred in seconds.

Hawke rose.

Her aura was back, and it lit the lyrium under his skin ablaze.

"I will _not_ apologise for trusting my friend." She walked up to the fighting rod, picked it up, and then slammed it against the deck. He could feel the magic pushing through the crude wood, bursting through it, splitting it like a lightning, further and further until it was too much, until the rod could no longer swell with power and a white, blindingly bright column of light shot from its top. "Nor for being a mage. Nor for protecting those who had no-one to protect them. And Meredith and all the templars can go fuck themselves now."

A dead silence, with only the constant quiet thrum of the sea-waves, answered her. Fenris closed his eyes and slumped down to the deck.

She looked at him.

" _I_ can blame myself. But no one else has the right."

"I… apologise," he whispered breathlessly. He heard uncertain steps and then a soft hand touched his aching temple, making him jump and wince.

"Are you hurt?"

"Yes."

"Good. You had it coming."

He couldn't stop a weak smile. "I… suppose I did." Her hands gently shifted across his head, feeling up the swelling on his cheek, the bruised back of the head, and the radiating source of pain that he had just crashed into a mast. A spreading, soothing cool sensation followed her fingers, and Fenris let out a long breath of relief.

"I failed you. I should have known better than what your grief was telling me."

"We all grieve in different ways," she said, and there was a softness in her voice he had not expected. "And yours happens to be lashing out on me. It took me a while to get it."

"I-" He wanted to argue, but then he remembered Hadriana and – the need of hurting someone, anyone, to match his own hurt. He lowered his head. "I beg your forgiveness, Hawke."

"Stop." Her hands slipped through his hair down to his shoulders and tightened there, the swirling trail of lyrium coming to life under her touch. "Don't… please don't. Don't submit like that. I'd never hit you, not just because I'm angry. I'm not…"

"I know."

She lowered her temples to rest against his, her aura thrumming quietly in the lyrium of his tattoos, and he breathed - the first time in weeks, it felt like.

The blissful silence was broken by slow, deliberate clapping.

"And they call _my_ stories outrageous exaggerations." Varric walked up to them. "When I have to downplayyour life to seem believable, Hawke."

"Varric." She raised her head and gripped the torched wood of her rod. "I think I just made a staff."

The dwarf grinned at her. "Of course you did, Hawke. I wouldn't expect any less."

 **-/-**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Typical Hawke, just walking out to get some fresh air and accidentally getting involved in some epic fighting drama. Must be something genetic.


	8. Calmest before the storms

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part I: ON THE RUN**

 **Chapter 8: Calmest before the storm**

After their showdown, the crew seemed to treat the Champion with newfound respect. Several warriors offered to spar with her, and she'd accepted every challenge, much to Fenris' dismay.

In the evenings, they would gather outside, enjoying the last warm evenings of the summer, and instead of the usual oil lamps Aedale would illuminate the mast with millions of little fairy lights that spread all the way to the top. (Varric, when he saw it for the first time, shook his head and muttered something about ghost ships and cheesiness.) Isabela sat close to Hawke on those times, snickering at some inappropriate stories they were sharing, or, with half-lidded eyes locked on the horizon, talking about the sea. Fenris did not interrupt, contenting himself to listening to the familiar buzz of the conversation, with a word or two every once and again bobbing up to the surface of the smooth, comforting white noise. Varric sat with them and listened, and wrote; at one time, Aedale caught the view of the carefully embellished title of "The Tale of the Champion," and badgered him long enough that he let her read the first chapter aloud.

The entire crew gathered for that, and Aedale thrived in the attention as she read out the story of a strange hero that was – seemed to be – her, but also not her: stronger, tougher, more confident. Varric supplied the voice of Carver; Isabela, making the most sour and threatening face she could twist her features into, read Aveline's lines. When Fenris was asked to do ser Wesley, his first instinct was to scoff and deny; but then he looked at Hawke's face, lightened up and blushed with excitement, and – hesitantly, with a finger following the lines with uncertainty – he read out the words of the long-dead Templar. Isabela seemed to take all too much of pleasure in acting out Aveline's gushing love confessions towards him, and then, finally, did a dramatic re-enactment of Wesley's death. Fenris rolled his eyes, but didn't protest, and the sighs from the gathered audience made him feel strangely proud.

He finished off the letter to Donnic and Aveline, and Aedale put it together with hers, sealing them both in a big, sturdy envelope that had a chance of surviving the journey to Kirkwall.

She had changed, he could see that clearly, but it was not a harmful change anymore; she'd talk to people, laugh, and fight, torture their ears with the harmonica, and when he reached out to touch her, his fingers immersed in the warm, crackling magical energy before he touched the skin. And yet the energy was different; it was quieter, more concentrated, and whereas before she'd fight with fire and ice and lightning, on the ship she'd restrict herself to the spirit magic, less flashy and more controlled. (It could, also, relate to the fact that Isabela had a few choice words for her after a careless spell singed the boom of the sail.) There was more thought behind the instinct, more careful deliberation, however relaxed and at ease she seemed.

In the night, as he held a protective hand across her stomach, listening to her deep, even breaths, he could feel the uneasy fluctuations of magic underneath her skin; a deeply coiled cocoon of guilt, remorse, and regret, radiating with the sorrowful chill. He knew what was causing it: there was a carefully folded piece of paper she always carried close to the chest, with a long list of names.

It made him think of the men and women he knew in Seheron. They'd taught him how to weave ropes, and hunt, and make bombs that spilled thick white fog amongst the trees; and which vines to cut to get a dripping white balm, in which they would cover their palms and faces, disappearing in the smoke like silent spectres. Hyruna, the old fog dancer of the tribe, had pressed his wrinkled hand onto his tattoos and told him – pointedly not noticing his shaking at the touch, _he had been a slave for all his life_ – that he was marked to be one of them, a white ghost in the white, fearless and fearsome.

When he'd been killing his tribe one by one, a slave caught back on his leash and pointed forward, Hyruna had not tried to engage him. He'd lunged straight at Danarius.

After years and years and years, the mechanic blow that slashed the fog dancer's throat remained one of the things Fenris could remember with perfect, torturous clarity.

He pressed his chest tightly against Hawke's small frame. She moved in her sleep, her hand finding its way to her stomach, where his palm was still resting protectively; her fingers curled around his, and Fenris breathed out a shaky breath.

He understood responsibility.

The ship was rocking softly, the line of water against the bull-eye swaying in gentle undulating pattern.

-/-

"Do we have to do this now?" whined Aedale. Isabela sidestepped her, swatting her bum as she walked away.

"Yes. No arguing from land rats."

"It just feels so pointless," said Hawke, shooting the pirate's back a dirty look. "We could be in Denerim in four days' time. Aren't you best buds with the other pirates anyway?"

"I am _not_ passing Brandel's Reach without getting word first, honey", said Isabela without turning around and disappeared below deck. Aedale shrugged and went up to the helm, where Darvin the first mate was quietly staring in the horizon, seemingly completely content with not doing and saying anything at all.

"I just don't see the point. We're losing an entire day just because she wants to dock and ask around."

Darvin looked at her, then back at the horizon ahead. He adjusted the course slightly. "She's got her reasons, Champion."

"They don't hold up. And just 'Hawke' will do, thanks." She slumped to the ground next to him. "We could take on any raider team we wanted. And it's not like it's a given they'll be there. We really don't need to go and announce that we're passing"

"It's what the folk do."

"See? So you're friends. Isabella could just wave at the raiders and be like 'hey, remember me, buddy? Sure you do, would you mind not raiding?' And then we'd move on." She picked up a loose end of the rope locked in a capstan and started clumsily making a bowline knot – the one that Isabella had hammered into her head in a rare attempt to respect safety. "I don't think this qualifies as a get-out-of-the-boat emergency. We have important business to do in Denerim."

"We've been on sea for almost three sevendays now," observed Darvin absent-mindedly. "Strange moment to get itchy."

"We haven't exactly been wasting time until now."

"We ain't going to waste time. It's what's done."

"Yee-ah, I'm not the greatest fan of _what's done_ ," said Aedale, dropping the butchered knot on the deck and standing up. "Worst come to worst, I'll set their ships aflame. Shouldn't be more difficult than a dragon."

Darvin shot her a look of equal curiosity and incredulousness, but then just shrugged. "You really don't get it, do you."

"Honour amongst pirates? Unspoken rules of a cutthroat community? Being territorial? Oh, I get it." Aedale waved dismissively. "Just don't care. Believe me, I have bigger things to worry about right now."

"Aye, but some of us have to stick to the small picture." Darvin looked back at the horizon. "You'll be gone soon, Champion. But the raiders of Brander's Reach ain't. Burning a ship or two won't change it for us, except that we'll be the poor sods taking the fallout."

Aedale opened her mouth and hesitated. She had no reply for the rebuke.

"Just Hawke, please."

Darvin shrugged.

Aedale stared at the horizon. _The choice of the Champion._ She wondered how many other times she was being given a choice, and chose the easier option, too short-sighted to see the consequences; and how many lives were touched by it, directly or indirectly. _The grasp on the neck of Destiny, or just tearing through the fates of millions, oblivious to the damage?_ A wreath of blond hair flashed in her memory, _Anders_ , and she blinked the spectre away.

"Do we know where we dock?" she said, accepting the defeat.

"Amaranthine, wind permitting."

Another ghost from the past, it seemed. "I had a friend who stayed there for a while. He said he was travelling with the Queen of Ferelden."

Darvin let out a short bark of laughter. "Aye, and who hasn't? Captain did too, and her slut Antivan friend, and his dog. People sell her hair and bedsheets all over the place, you'd have thought she's a furry sloth demon."

"Yeah, but he was a Grey Warden there. So." It was her time to shrug, with a little bit of smugness on her face.

"He dead?" asked Darvin, with what had to be the sailors' idea of subtlety. Aedale shook his head.

"No. Maybe. I don't know."

"It's tough life for those in the Grey," he said with more sympathy. Hawke nodded, breathing evenly to warm up her aura, cooled down unpleasantly by the mention of Anders. Darvin turned his eyes back to the horizon and for a long while they just stood there, side by side, in what Aedale found a strangely easy camaraderie.

"Laaaaaaaand-ho!" yelled someone at the bow. Varric popped his head out of the captain's quarters.

"Are we there yet? I'm not even halfway through act two."

"Go back to your muse, we're still _hours_ away from even seeing it properly," said Aedale above his head, but her heart jumped and lurched. She had not seen Ferelden since the Blight.

Varric tilted his head upwards to see her. "Hey, Chuckles, excited about getting home?"

"I'll have you know that the arling of Amaranthine is about halfway across the country from Lothering," said Aedale, adopting her best snooty voice. "Get your maps straight."

He made a dismissive gesture. "Should be the same dogshit brown all over. You'll feel right back at home."

"That explains why you love all your caves and tunnels so much. Same dwarfey stuff."

Varric winced at the mere memory of it. "Wasn't born there. For all the casts think, I could just as well be a really short human. Anyway, let me know when we're out of here. I'd love me some solid ground." 

His head disappeared back inside, and Aedale stepped away from the edge, facing Darvin again. "So, about that harmonica…" she said conversationally. "I think I'm starting to get the _Antivan Ladies_ just fine."

The sailors on deck rushed to safety.

-/-

At dusk, the small strip of land they were seeing in the south grew into recognisable features of the coast. Varric stared at it longingly; even Vindr dragged himself outside from the belly of the ship and, with his snout pointed south, howled with wistful nostalgia.

"Oi! Champion! Keep your beast quiet, will ya?" shouted one of the sailors at the bow, as they shifted away from the melancholic dog. Aedale shrugged.

"He's Fereldan. You lot are surprised? I'm shocked he's not howling the national anthem."

"That's Amaranthine," said Isabela, during the one of the few occasions when she was manning the helm herself. "That thing on the right. We're aiming to get there by morning, with this wind. If it changes, we go to Forthing instead, and ride to the city. Will be quicker that way."

"Any reason why?"

Isabela rolled her eyes. It was Fenris who answered, after a long pause: "The wind from the north-east would push us to the land and away from Denerim. Better to wait it out on land if we must dock anyway." 

"Ah." Aedale stared at the coast covered in mist. "Should we just travel on horseback from that point on, provided that the wind changes? There shouldn't be more than two days' ride from Amaranthine to Denerim. I'm imagining the Pilgrim's Path is well suited for fast travel."

"Used to be," said Isabela grimly. "Now you have to count in the darkspawn and bandits still running about after the Blight. It's a trading nightmare."

"Shall I do that?" Aedale looked at her friends, a new plan hatching. "Even with the darkspawn I can get there faster on land. Worst case scenario, I'll meet with you here in a sevenday." _Hopefully having informed the monarchs of Ferelden about what happened in Kirkwall before anyone else managed to._

Isabela did not look impressed. "I don't like splitting up, Hawke." A shadow of worry crossed her face, and Aedale wondered whether she thought this was a final goodbye, the kind that Aveline and Merrill had said only weeks before. "You won't be here in a sevenday."

"Highly likely," agreed Aedale easily. "You can chase us to Denerim and then we'll sail back to the Free Marches together, after I've secured some sort of deal for the mages. If you prefer that. Fenris?"

"It'll get you to Denerim faster," stated the elf matter-of-factly. "I'm coming with you."

Isabela looked at them both and then sighed. "I'll catch up with you in the city, then. Leave a message at the Hungry Nobleman if you leave before me."

Aedale swallowed the guilt that this simple request evoked – _this_ is _goodbye, then –_ and smiled, with a big and fake grin. "I'll say hi to your royal friends there."

"Yeah, you do that." Isabela's face was still, and Aedale did not dare joke any further. She and Fenris exchanged glances and walked off the helm, towards the starside.

The land was looming close, a strip of black in the darkening horizon. A few distant lights, pale and tiny like dying sparks, lit up amongst the shadows.

"The world is so much bigger than Kirkwall," said Fenris quietly. "Somehow we all managed to forget it."

-/-

They moored the ship before dawn. Aedale was dimly aware of the shouting and barking short, pointed commands as she awoke early in the morning, the spot at her side still warm, but empty. The cabin's rocking was definitely less pronounced.

Just like Isabela said, it was Forthing, not Amaranthine; a little fishing village west from the city, with little more than a dock, a tavern, and a humble looking Chantry. From what she remembered of the long, hushed conversations between her parents – all the way back to Lothering, and before – this was what Amaranthine itself used to be, too, before the Orlesian invasion. They used to live somewhere in the arling, or so she had been told – one of the many places Malcolm Hawke had carried his wife and young child in his endless run from the Templars.

When she walked out on the deck, the sailors were just finishing off the mooring, Isabela already on land. She was eyeing the entire ship carefully. Varric was at her side, stretching languidly.

"Morning, Chuckles. You missed all the shouting."

"I didn't, else I wouldn't be up at this hour." Aedale rolled her eyes. She jumped off the deck onto the pier and wobbled uncertainly, trying to stay upright on a hard unmoving surface. _Damn those sea legs._ "Well, last time I saw Amaranthine, it was definitely… bigger."

Isabela made a face. "Wind changed in the middle of the night, blew us straight into the coast. Talk about tough luck."

Fenris finished off folding the ropes in a neat, even hoops, hanged it on the hook at the side of the captain's quarters, and jumped off to join them. He, as Aedale noticed with an inner sigh, did not wobble.

The four of them stood in silence for a short while, staring at the ship and the sea. Isabela was focused and intent, keen on making sure the mooring was perfect; Varric was clearly relieved to stand on something solid; Fenris stood at her side, his fingertips brushing her arm. She was thankful for that small gesture of support.

Aedale swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. Something told her that she would not stand with those people for a long, long time.

A scream tore through the air.

 **-/-**

 **END OF PART ONE**

 **For part two, go to my profile and find the story called CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION: ANTEBELLUM.**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** And so we've arrived at the end of part one! Originally written together with the Antebellum, it was split because the story grew too long and too opaque without a clear division. This one covers the personal fallout of the Kirkwall battle – the next one will be enlarging the scope to see what exactly our heroes missed during their sea journey. Expect some familiar faces from the previous games: a wise old mage, a grumpy noble Warden, and perhaps even a glimpse of the Queen… Thank you so much for being with me thus far, and I invite you to read on!


	9. First blood

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part II: ANTEBELLUM**

 **Chapter 1: First blood**

" _Antebellum" is a Latin word loaned into English, meaning "before the war" (ante-pre, bellum -war)._

Aedale spun around and lunged into the dew still looming over the village.

"I've noticed there are two kinds of people," said Varric conversationally, taking Bianca off his shoulder and following suit. "The kind that runs away from ominous screams, and the kind that runs _towards_ them."

Fenris raised the corner of his mouth in an ironic half-smile, already half a pace in front of the dwarf. "And the kind that causes them."

They stopped.

There was a gathering of people in front of them, a murmuring, faceless crowd in the dew. Aedale cursed inwardly. She elbowed the person in front of her, prompting a loud hiss and a string of profanities, and squeezed through. They were fishermen and farmers, with pale Fereldan faces, dark hair, and brown clothes, their faces angry and scared.

And there was a mage in their midst.

The man was an alchemist; one breath and Aedale could smell the sharp sting of blood lotus, felandaris, and fire essence. He was also dirty. His long blue robe was wet and muddy, his hair tousled wildly, and his cheek marked with a clear fresh bruise. He was kneeling at a large stone in the middle of the square, a man and a woman stood behind him; one forcing his head and hands down, the other searching him hastily.

"Help!" yelled the alchemist wildly. No one in the crowd moved.

Aedale breathed in and out, very slowly.

"What is this man's crime?" she asked without raising her voice. The townspeople moved away from her.

The woman searching the alchemist looked up and sneered. "You're from the ship, aren't you! This is our business. Walk on."

Aedale tightened her lips. "I don't think so. What has this man done to deserve mob justice?"

"He's a mage, that's what he's done. They hate the Maker! His kind killed the Grand Cleric in the Free Marches!" The crowd cheered grimly to this, shooting angry looks at the captive in their midst.

"I didn't- I don't-" moaned the mage. The man holding him slammed his head into the stone. There was a nauseating crunch and the alchemist's body went limp, slumping onto the boulder lifelessly.

The crowd murmured approvingly.

Aedale closed her eyes. The darkness underneath her eyelids was red.

Then she slammed her fist into the ground. It shook wildly; the people fell to their knees, screaming in surprise and fear.

"Why don't you try your luck with someone who can actually defend themselves," she hissed through gritted teeth. The woman – the cleric of the meagre Chantry of Forthing, she guessed – let out a wild high-pitched scream.

"A maleficar! Kill her!"

"You just killed an innocent man in cold blood," whispered Aedale through the red veil of fury. "Just because he was different than you. Just because you were scared and angry. You murdered a man."

She felt a weak tug at her side. "Hawke-"

" _Not now, Varric._ "

"Hawke, don't kill these people-" The townsfolk were cowering on the ground, with anger and fear on their faces, and Aedale felt that only the fact they didn't know how powerful she was stopped them from lunging at her. _That's it. Let someone else do it. Let someone else try first._

"I won't." She smiled brightly through the gritted teeth. "'Cause that would be murder. You know? Like what we just saw here?" She walked up to the cleric, which drew a short blade out of her boot.

"Don't you dare, maleficar! Maker take you!"

"What I intend to do," said Aedale, the smile slipping off to reveal a face of stone, "is a trial."

Varric blanched. "Hawke, whatever you think you're doing, bloodshed isn't generally the best way-"

"I am a _Champion,_ " she snapped. "I fight for those who have none. And he didn't." She extended a clenched fists towards the cleric in a universal gesture of challenge. "I demand a trial by combat for murdering an innocent man."

The cleric sneered at her, too disgusted to make a coherent sound. The man at her side stood up from the corpse. "Who do you think you are, _abomination?_ We've seen people like you. There's no difference between you and the darkspawn!" In a split second he moved – and mere instinct made her dodge a knife flying to her throat. The blade swished past her ear.

She didn't see Fenris move behind her. Only at the shriek of the cleric she looked back to the man and saw the same dagger - reversed, thrown straight into his eye. He sucked in a surprised breath - and slumped onto the alchemist's body heavily.

The crowd roared.

"For fuck's sake," murmured Isabela behind her back.

The chaos descended onto the town square. The people lunged at them at the same time, pushing through one another's backs, clumsy and maniacal in their bloodlust. Varric fired several warning shots to the ground and then three men leapt towards him, threatening to strangle him with their heavy weight alone. Fenris did not concern himself with subtleties like warnings – he plunged his fist into the first man to lunge at him, squeezing violently at his heart. Blood splattered the cobblestone.

He saw people fleeing at this sight. _Good._

It was quick. Several bodies were lying on the ground, seemingly lifeless; he doubted whether all of them were, given Varric's reluctance to kill. The rest of them cowered on the ground or fled for their lives.

Hawke held the cleric by her throat.

Fenris rushed to her, but was frozen immediately by the look of his lover's face.

"Why did you allow this?" hissed Aedale. The cleric gurgled and spat on her face, but she continued unmoving. "You killed a man. Why?"

"To… the… Void _…_ with you mages," wheezed the woman. "Kirkwall… my… sister… dead…"

Aedale stilled and let her down. She fell to her knees, coughing.

"Your sister preached in the Kirkwall Chantry." Fenris watched her hand as she subconsciously reached to her chest, to the list of the dead.

The town square was silent and bloody.

"Hate," said Aedale quietly, "breeds more hate." She looked at the woman at her feet. "I could kill you. I have the right. But I also have more blood on my hands than you ever will." She looked at the limp body of the alchemist, squished under the weight of his killer's corpse, and blinked twice, very heavily. Then she flicked her fingers in a quick gesture; a white flame blossomed under the bodies, charring them to ash in seconds, murderer and victim indistinguishable.

She turned away and started walking. "We're done here."

No-one stopped her.

-/-

The journey to Amaranthine was long, bleak and depressing. The sailors were battling unfriendly winds and stormy weather; Aedale shut herself in her cabin and did not come out for a long while. When she did, her face was pale but hard.

"We've spent too much time on sea. Time to get back to business," she said, without a trace of her trademark smile, completely devoid of humour.

"You do realise we left a sworn enemy behind us now, don't you, Chuckles?" said Varric without raising his eyes from the parchments. He had been writing for hours.

"Right now I very much prefer leaving enemies behind rather than more names on the list," said Aedale briskly. "About that. How many did we kill in that skirmish?"

"At least five, not counting the mage and the guy who threw a knife at you. One was murder and the other was very clearly a suicide."

She took his quill and added seven more lines to the list, which she then tucked back under her shirt.

"This is one hell of a grim bingo you're playing, Chuckles. Stop that."

"Think of it as... keeping count."

Varric shook his head and said nothing, hunching back over the desk. The ship shook as another heavy gush of the wind struck its side.

"What in the Void did we start," he muttered under his breath.

Things did not get better as they finally reached Amaranthine. The news from Kirkwall had preceded them; and Hawke whitened even further as she saw the Chantry preachers on the streets, spewing fiery sermons about the evil magic spiralling out of control. Amaranthine had been hit hard by the Blight; and even after seven years, the destruction and unrest that it'd caused was a ripe ground for hatred.

"It's Grey Wardens' city now," Isabela said quietly as they passed yet another street preacher. "They're good folk. They won't like it any bit more than we do."

Indeed, every once in a while they would pass a grey-clad warrior with a griffin emblem on their chests; they did not seem comfortable with the resounding sermons.

"Go and adhere to your pirate honour code, Isabela," said Aedale. "Fenris and I will go to the Keep and talk to the Wardens. Anders… Anders said he'd stationed there before he'd gone to Kirkwall, maybe we can call in a few favours-"

"We're not going to call in favours in the name of the _abomination-_ "

"That's _enough,_ Fenris," snapped Aedale. He stopped mid word. "I've had enough mage hatred over the last couple of days. We'll see you back on the ship at dusk, Isabela."

The pirate cast them a worried look and walked away.

Heavy silence hung between them as they made their way to the Keep, situated outside of the city by more than an hour's walk. Aedale pursed her lips and refused to say anything.

They saw Vigil's Keep from the distance: a grey, bulky castle rising up from the forest, a distant reminder of how Ostagar must have looked like in its glory days. Archers from the towers noticed them as they approached. After a short while, a dark-haired man emerged from the gate; the griffon on his breastplate was scarcely seen through the numerous repairs and scars on the metal and leather, but it was still shining. There was a heavy longbow on his back.

"Welcome, strangers. Who are you and what are you seeking from the Grey Wardens?"

Aedale narrowed her eyes. "I think I know you. Do I know you?"

The man's face remained impassive. "I doubt it. State your business with the Wardens."

"Ah!" She punched the air. "I _do_ know you. You were passing through Kirkwall when all this Qunari riot happened. Anders spoke of you... Nathan, Nolan… Nathaniel?"

The Warden narrowed his eyes, a recognition dawning slowly. "Champion of Kirkwall."

"The very same!"

"The Warden-Commander will see you," he said shortly. He made a gesture and the heavy gate was pulled open, just wide enough for three people to pass.

"What, and you're not asking anymore what I'm coming for? Spoilsport. I was just about to drop the-"

"We know what happened in Kirkwall, Champion," said Nathaniel Howe, disappearing in the belly of the castle, and they could not do anything but follow suit.

 _-/-_

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Welcome to **Antebellum: the second instalment of** **"the Choice of the Champion," a series intended to retrace Hawke's journey from Kirkwall to Adamant.** (You can find part one, 'On the run', on my profile.) As the name suggests, Antebellum deals with the events directly before the Mage-Templar War on a broader scale. All the chapters are finished and will be published regularly. Do subscribe/bookmark, and while you're at it you can leave a comment! I'd really really appreciate that. Thanks for being here, and have a nice read!


	10. Information

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part II: ANTEBELLUM**

 **Chapter 2: Information**

" _Antebellum" is a Latin word loaned into English, meaning "before the war" (ante-pre, bellum -war)._

"Oi, Nate! The Warden-Commander has left." A dwarf called after them as they were squeezing through the castle mess, Aedale forced to stretch her flexibility to the limits not to punch any eating Grey Warden in the face. It was dinner time, and the hall was filled full.

"What- again?!" Nathaniel turned back, bemused. "When?"

"She said not to tell you, or you'd be grumpy." The red-haired dwarf snickered and then burped loudly. The Wardens around him greened slightly and huddled away. "Couple of hours ago. She got a raven from Denerim and off she went, back to the hubby. Must have been one hell of a booty call."

"What did the raven bring?" asked Aedale before Nathaniel could speak. He shot her a dirty look.

The dwarf shrugged. "Hell if I know, lady. None of my business and sure none of yours."

"Thank you, Oghren," said Nathaniel, clearly annoyed, and turned back to Aedale. "Follow me, Champion." He turned back so raptly that the longbow on his back smacked a sitting man across the head. Nathaniel did not stop to listen to the string of curses that followed.

"I seem to have a penchant for finding myself some exceptional brooders," murmured Aedale to Fenris. He scoffed.

The office Nathaniel had led them into was small and high-ceilinged, with a tall stained glass window reddening the light of the sunset even further. There was a pile of papers on the desk, a couple of humble wooden chairs, a small painting of a griffin on the wall, and – left on the top of the pile like a paperweight – a winged golden crown.

Nathaniel murmured something under his breath and picked up the crown, hiding it protectively in one of the drawers.

Aedale grinned. She did hear the stories circulating about the queen, but…

The Warden sat down behind the desk and gestured them to the chairs in front of him. There was something about his curtly, confident movements that belied the status of a Grey Warden and spoke of nobility, knighthood, and wealth. She spotted the nearly-rubbed off insignia of the house Howe on his sleeve – the only part of armour that wasn't meticulously cleaned – and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

"I thought the Howe family were no longer ruling in Amaranthine."

"You are not wrong, my lady." His smile was forced and fake, with a badly hidden shadow of irritation underneath. "This has been a Grey Warden keep since the Blight. I answer to the Warden-Commander directly."

"Is she coming back here? I was meant to talk to the royalty in Denerim and to the Wardens here, but if I can squish both into one conversation, that would be dandy." Aedale sat down and propped her elbows on the desk, staring at Nathaniel intently. "You were… a friend of Anders' once, weren't you?"

The Warden closed his eyes for a second. "I was," he said stiffly. "But I do not know the man that blew up Kirkwall."

"He fought for a cause," said Aedale quietly. "And he himself was the first casualty. In the end, there was nothing of a man _I_ knew in him either." She made a short pause. "But it doesn't make the cause any less just. I wanted to talk to the Warden-Commander about the protection of the Kirkwall mages."

Nathaniel avoided her glance. "You've been travelling for a while, Champion, haven't you?" he asked slowly.

Aedale blanched. "What was that thing that the raven brought?"

He hesitated.

"You are a good leader, Champion. Your father has done great things for the Wardens. I'm sure you didn't want this –"

" _Tell me what was in that letter._ "

Nathaniel pursed his lips, hesitated, and then relented. "It's Jainen," he said shortly. "It's revolting."

Aedale closed her eyes. "Fereldan Circle?" she asked weakly.

"It's been building up to this for days. The Warden-Commander is barely even in the keep anymore. She's been trying to calm the situation, but if she's gone again…"

"We saw a mob murder a mage this morning," said Fenris after a long pause. "Forthing. Amaranthine is full of angry preachers."

Nathaniel turned his face to him, seemingly slightly surprised to hear his voice. "Forthing," he said heavily. "The Circle had a herbalist there. Studying some rare plants, if I recall. Harmless. We thought it was bad, but…"

"Can the Wardens recruit the revolted mages into a special unit? You are above the law, I am told." Aedale straightened on her chair, all playfulness gone from her tone. "Invoke the Right of Conscription and have them brought to you. You can save lives."

"We don't conscript masses," said Nathaniel. "And all we have to offer is a life of servitude and an early death. We can save some, Champion, but not all of them."

"Maker's mercy, they're mages. They can shoot lightning, heal, craft potions and freeze people. Are you sure you can't just hold a non-Warden unit in the Keep until the tension fizzles out?"

"Champion…" said Nathaniel slowly, with heavy finality. "There are more ravens coming to the Keep every day. Ansburg Circle has revolted, the one in Hasmal is halfway through a coup. The tower in Kinloch Hold is only held together by a couple of senior enchanters. This is _not_ going to fizzle out."

Aedale rested her head on her palms.

"Let's start from the beginning, shall we?" she asked in a weak voice after a long pause. "We boarded the ship three days after the Chantry exploded. Tell me what happened after that."

-/-

Nathaniel's account was brief, concise and terrifyingly exact. With an unnervingly stoic voice he described the political upheaval that followed the events in Kirkwall, prompting a violent reaction of the Chantry clerics and squeezing down on the mage rights. That, combined with the fact that the well-known and popular Champion of Kirkwall lent her support to the mage rebellion, sparked a sudden and uncontrollable raise in the ranks of the Circle Separatists. In retaliation, the templars clamped down on the wayward mages. There were incidents.

"Incidents," said Hawke flatly. Things that Malcolm Hawke would talk about in hushed whisper, his eyes angry and fiery despite his quiet voice. _Incidents._ "Go on, please."

The Circles in the Free Marches were first to go. After over a half of mage students in Ansburg attempted an organised escape and were all threatened with Tranquility, the senior staff stood in their defence. The revolt happened overnight, quick and violent and bloody, and the surviving templars fled the Circle – only to be murdered by the mage refugees from Kirkwall.

Fenris pursed his lips and looked pointedly away from Aedale.

Separatists in Hasmal attempted a similar feat, but were being fought in a more efficient way than in Ansburg. The Circle siege was still ongoing; the mages had proclaimed independence, the templars the Right of Annulment, and it did not look like it was going anywhere.

Then it was Jainen.

Nathaniel stopped and rubbed his temples. "I'm not the best person to report it to you, Champion. What I know is not the whole picture, and this is because Claire– because the Warden-Commander kept it secret from all of us. You might find it useful to speak to her in Denerim."

Aedale eyed him up. "This is her office, right?"

"Correct." Nathaniel didn't blink. "Also irrelevant."

"If she left the documents anywhere, it would be here. Is that also correct?"

The Warden straightened up in his chair. "I can't let you do this, Champion. This is classified information." But his eyes darted towards the pile of parchments on the desk.

"Where were you when the Blight started?"

"Pardon?" Nathaniel's eyes narrowed. He pressed his lips into a thin line. "This is no business of yours, Champion."

Aedale laid her hands on the desk and leaned forward. "I was in Lothering, you know. With my sister and brother, and mother. We knew the darkspawn were coming. We should have started running ages ago, and some did. We just didn't know which direction. The horde was closing in, there were Blight wolves on the fields, Chasids screaming that we were all doomed. So we thought we should follow in the footsteps of the only person who seemed like they knew what they were doing: the Grey Warden." She looked him straight in the eye. "But she had already left. I am _done_ following Claire Cousland for salvation."

"This is not-"

"This is _worse_ than a Blight, because we're doing that to ourselves!" Aedale snapped. " And if you're not seeing the signs, then obviously you haven't been paying attention ten years ago. I will _not_ wait for the Warden-Commander to come back and save me. Are you going to help me stop that mess, or will you be on the wrong side of history yet again, Nathaniel _Howe?"_

Nathaniel flinched. His hand reflexively rose up to cover the worn insignia on his sleeve – but he forced it down with obvious conscious effort. A flash of old shame crossed his features, before smoothening back into a calm mask.

"How low you stoop, Champion."

"The stakes are high enough." Hawke held his gaze without blinking.

Nathaniel turned away first, lowering his eyes to the desk and the pile of parchments on it. "What do you want?"

"Information." Without asking, Aedale spread the papers on the entire desk. _Varric would have squealed at this,_ she thought, looking at meticulously written out spy reports, shipment receipts, and what seemed like a diplomatic exchange gone horribly wrong. There was one letter on the top of the pile, with its messy handwriting different from the others, not bearing the characteristic marks of a raven's claws: this had not been sent.

 _Wynne,_

 _I know you can't leave Kinloch Hold in this situation, but I really wish you were with me right now – this mage business is way over my head. If Jainen revolts, we're risking the full wrath of Orlais rolling across Thedas in an Exalted March, but we can't stop it! Alistair wanted to ride there immediately – can you imagine what catastrophe that would be, with all his Templar background? I managed to keep him away from Kinloch, thank the Maker, but we really need you here, Wynne. This… revolt is tapping into an entire world of prejudice and persecution I know nothing about, and I feel like I'm walking a booby-trapped field whilst completely blind. I'm trying to keep up, but that just means that I barely have the time to be a Warden-Commander anymore – the way Nathaniel looks at me every time I've ridden off is freezing._

 _I've been in contact with the Revered Mother of Jainen. She's an idiot. The Knight-Captain at the Circle there is not returning my ravens, so I'm fearing the worst. If the Circle is really infected as we spoke, I'm going to be up against another demon horde soon… Really brings back the memories, huh?_

 _Keep me updated on the situation in Kinloch. And please, please come as soon as you can._

 _Yours,_

 _Claire_

"Are you quite done?" Nathaniel's cold voice tore through her focus. Hawke put the letter down.

"No, I'm not. In fact, I'm just starting. But thanks for asking. Fenris, we're going to Jainen. You don't need to walk us back to the gate…"

The elf wordlessly stood up and followed her to the door. But before they managed to get out, Nathaniel spoke quietly, bitterly:

"Was she the same, I wonder? When the Blight started. A woman with a title, with a hope to save the world, and little regard for everything else. I was at the _wrong side of history,_ I wouldn't know."

"Nor would I, sorry." Aedale turned back. "Haven't ever managed to catch up to her."

"You _are_ following Claire Cousland, Champion."

"No." She smiled mirthlessly. "She's a queen, she picks her battles. I'm only a Champion." A flame flickered on her hand, a tiny bright speck of magic, white-hot energy, the mark of responsibility. "I am given mine."

She walked out of the room, and Fenris silently followed.

-/-

As they were coming back to the ship, a messenger caught up to them. He was carrying a large cage with restlessly cawing ravens.

"From the Warden-Captain, my lady." As Hawke took the cage, bemused, she noticed a curt note at the side of it.

 _Champion,_

 _Keep up._

Aedale laughed earnestly.

 _-/-_

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Seriously, a political player without at least one raven messenger? Maybe in Kirkwall that's enough, but not at the scale of a continent. Listen to Uncle Nate, Hawke.


	11. Arson

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part II: ANTEBELLUM**

 **Chapter 3: Arson**

The first thing they noticed was a trail of while smoke from the docks.

Aedale stopped in her tracks. Then she cursed badly and started running. Soon they heard the screams and swearing, and a dog's angry howling, and the sound of wood clashing against wood; and a dry, crackling hiss of the flames.

Isabela's ship was on fire.

The other sailors in the bay were frantically trying to move their vessels away from the flaming ship, splashing and tugging and yelling. Her hound was on the pier, his short fur ruffled angrily – at the first glance, Aedale couldn't spot Isabela, and her heart stopped for a millisecond; but then there she was, her hair dishevelled and her captain hat gone, and the expression of pure unabated fury on her face. Varric was at her side, a handful of parchments hastily jammed under his shirt.

The flames were eating the sails, spreading onto the masts to the top. The crew had formed a human chain of buckets and were trying to smother the fire, but it had spread too high; the bottoms of the sails were just black ash and embers. Fenris cursed darkly, in harsh, violent Tevene; in a blink of an eye he jumped onboard and grabbed a bucket from one of the sailors. Vindr howled after him.

" _My staff!_ " yelled Hawke. He hesitated for a split second, looking at the ship with thinned lips; then he passed the bucket along, and broke the chain. In a flash he disappeared in the heavy smoke below deck. Aedale raised her arms and shot an icy spell into the flaming sail; but it was too heavy, too unfocused without staff channelling, and a dense lump of ice tore a hole through the cloth. The mast creaked and bent sideways.

"About fucking time, Hawke!" yelled Isabela. She was trembling from helpless rage.

"The mast is going to fall!" As Aedale shouted, there was another loud crack, and a burning spreader beam fell off from the top of the mast. The sailors jumped sideways, but the flames were spreading faster than they could pour the water on it. The deck sagged under the blow, the fire immediately catching on the broken wood.

"FENRIS!" shrieked Hawke. Another spreader beam fell down, crushing the top deck at the entrance, and red mist covered her vision. She closed her fists and swirled her hands through the air – _it was not happening, not now, not now, not after everything, not in the fire –_ "Abandon ship! NOW!" A white curtain of ice enveloped the ship, melting in the scorching heat, the ship disappearing behind dense clouds of smoke and steam.

 _I – we still have to talk – you can't -_

She heard several heavy splashes through the thick white smoke, muted against the crackling of the fire – _too few, way too few for all the crew to have jumped –_ and reached for the magic in the heart, the fiery ribbons of blood gradually turning to ice, _no, not ice, water._ It was not supposed to be possible. She'd never done it. But the ship was on fire, and Fenris was trapped under the deck, and the crackling flames sounded like she was in the heart of her own firestorm, and it broke free, and it was _vengeful_ – there had to be a way. Over the flames she heard the foremast crack and fall into the water, the wreckage crashing into the next ship. The sailors on it started screaming.

She focused on the pounding in her head, the shimmer inside her veins, that rhythm that was innate, tidal, coming and going at the push of the moon – it would be just the same, it comes and goes with the moon –

Hawke pulled at the sea.

And the sea bent, and slowly, gradually a tide rose from the bay until it was higher than the ship, translucently green-and-blue like an underwater wall, the debris and litter still floating inside, held with an invisible squeezing hand. Hawke sucked in a shaky breath; her entire body trembled with impossible effort to keep the heavy masses of water just for a second longer, higher –

And then the tide roared and crashed, colliding with the ship like a storm against the lighthouse. The entire bay shook, the docked ships wobbling violently on their lines, crashing against each other and the pier. The tide reached the land in one violent sweep and Hawke's vision went black as she was hit, crushed under the incoming water, all air gone from her lungs and up becoming down –

One more crash tore through the air, and the burnt main mast fell heavily, almost leisurely, into the water.

Aedale grabbed the edge of the pier, desperately trying to hold on against the returning water. She scrambled to her feet, rubbing her eyes frantically – but her legs gave way and she slipped on the wet wood, hitting herself hard on in the temple. Raising her head and blinking away the blackness, she opened her mouth.

"FEN-" A violent cough stopped her, and then there was nothing.

-/-

The walls were grey and stony. A rectangle of colourful light from the stained glass made the room slightly more warm, but only just.

A wet snout was pressed to her hand.

Hawke blinked, fighting against the feeling that she had just been trampled over by a dragon.

Then the reality crashed into her – just as violently as the tide had. She tried to sit up and failed. Her mouth opened, but the only sound that came out was a weak sigh.

Isabela's face entered her field of vision. She had a big bruise on her cheek, and on her temple a painful reddening burn. Her eyes were red too, puffy and wet.

"You're awake!"

Aedale started hyperventilating. If Isabela had been hurt whilst _on_ the deck, Fenris would have– _he couldn't have –_

"Oh, for fuck's- we're all okay, Hawke. We're okay." Isabela sighed and closed her eyes. Aedale's breath slowed down. At the corner of her vision, she discovered the mystery of the wet snout; Vindr propped himself on two legs and leaned to lick her face. Somebody's hand swatted him away.

"Bad dog! I'm fine too, thanks for asking," said Varric's voice from the darkness behind her eyelids. He sounded a bit croaked, but otherwise normal. "But the ship's not."

She was glad that she couldn't see Isabela's face. "It will be," said the pirate with only the slightest tremor in her voice. "We'll rebuild her in no time. We'll travel all together soon, Hawke, don't you worry. I'll get you the fastest, sleekiest, sexiest ship Thedas has ever seen."

"In no time, Rivaini," said Varric gently. Then Aedale heard sobbing, suddenly muffled; as if the pirate hid her face in the dwarf's broad, comforting embrace.

 _I need to apologise to Fenris,_ she thought, before slipping off into dreamless sleep.

-/-

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Yeah. Sorry about that.


	12. The unthinkable

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part II: ANTEBELLUM**

 **Chapter 4: The unthinkable**

They were back in the Keep.

Floating in the muffled half-reality somewhere between conscious and subconscious, Aedale could feel the moist, cold smell of ancient stone before she even open her eyes. She was dimly aware that there were voices too, Varric's brazen teasing and someone else's exasperated voice… exasperated, deep voice with a Fereldan accent, rich, educated vowels, the way Fenris could have sounded if he'd had a life of privilege – _Fenris._ She suddenly remembered his thinned lips as he disappeared below deck, and then the crash when the burning spreader beam hit the board… _I need to see you. I need…_

Aedale opened her eyes and - the light was blinding. She squeezed her eyelids shut, wincing at the sudden brightness. Her throat was dry, thick; she tried to swallow and found out that the muscles squeezing at her throat are almost too weak for that. She pushed; her heart started beating quicker, but the larynx moved up and down.

She was drained.

There was a brush of a calloused hand on her wrist, a touch of fingers not too soft to be sentimental, but gentle enough to show care. "You pulled the sea," said Isabela quietly, in the same manner all bedside visitors talk to unconscious patients; softly, distantly, in a mumble more to herself than to Aedale. "You couldn't save her anyway, but you still did it. For us. For him." Her voice broke.

Cold tendrils of fear started creeping up towards Aedale's heart. Something was wrong. Something was…

"You know, a part of me kinda hopes you won't wake up anytime soon. Not to this. Is it weird?" Isabela let out a short bark of dry, humourless laugher. "If I could get my hands on that fucking cleric…" There was an echo of fire in her voice, anger burning so hot that it never went away, not even at her calmest, not completely.

 _Oh. I guess it makes sense. I knew I was making enemies._ Aedale focused on swallowing again. It was surprisingly difficult. _This is about the ship. This is about the ship and nothing else…_

"You pulled the sea to save us," repeated Isabela, more quietly, but her voice still resonated in the high stone-walled chamber. "You fucking moron, Hawke." The hand squeezed at her wrist, as much of a thank-you than Isabela would ever offer.

 _I'm a Champion. I save people. I make them live._

 _Where's Fenris?_

Consciousness floated away as gently as it'd appeared, pulling Aedale's mind back into the bottomless darkness of the sea.

-/-

"She's not waking up. You hear what the Wardens said, she's empty! At some point we'll have to-"

"Fenris would have killed you for even suggesting that."

"Fenris is _not here,_ Varric! And neither is Hawke! Fucking excuse me if I want to save at least _one-_ "

"Isabela," said Varric's voice with a calm, dangerous note betraying sharpness underneath. "Even saying that in these walls could bring an Exalted March on our asses. You sure you want to finish that sentence?"

" _I don't care,_ " snapped Isabela. "I don't care about the fuckin' Divine on her pissin' yellow throne or her Templar hounds, the only thing I care about is waking her the hell up, and the only one that could do that now is _Anders_!"

Silence.

Aedale felt as if her blood was freezing over slowly, a cold, numbing sensation spreading from her heart through the entire body. She didn't try to open her eyes. _Fenris is not here. Save at least one-_

It was wrong. It had to be wrong. There wasn't a rational world where it would be right.

"You happy with yourself now, Rivaini?" said Varric, his tone gravely sarcastic. "Wanna shout it from the rooftops now? Maybe run to our nice broody friend's office and tell him that we're going to spare him the trouble of investigation, 'cause the most fucking wanted apostate of Thedas is going to show up on his doorstep and play doctor?"

"He owes that to her. At least that."

"Damn right he does. And he probably owes her enough that we could ask him to come here, heal her, and die on the spot, and that would be mercy." There was something dark and awful in Varric's voice. "But if he does come here, _she_ is screwed. She'll be held accountable for everything, and they won't ask questions, because Kirkwall's still burning. I know how it works, Isabela. I wrote too many stories."

Hawke tried to move her lips. _Fenris._ She failed. When she reached for the magic in her veins to help her, there was only a faint shimmer deep inside, nothing else.

"There could be another spirit healer," said Varric after a long pause. "That's also in the stories. If she's good enough for the Hero of Ferelden, she'd be good enough for Chuckles. Her name is-"

"Wynne," said Nathaniel's voice from the door. Hawke felt the tension suddenly filling the room.

"Well, that should be enough for today's lesson in Why You Should Never Disclose Sensitive Information At A Grey Warden's Keep," said Varric conversationally. "What's the news, Broody? Your spying skills are abysmal."

"Nothing you've said is a novelty to me," replied Nathaniel dryly. "We expected you to be in contact with Anders. We also expected you to have enough sense not to have him come to the Keep. However, we also have no desire to let the Champion of Kirkwall die on our ground."

"We're _not_ in contact with Anders-"

"Shush, Rivaini. So what about Wynne the healer?"

"She's in Kinloch Hold. The Warden-Commander requested her presence here in a letter she's never sent…"

A pause.

"You would do that?"

"I would, Master Tethras."

"Why?"

Another pause, a longer one.

"Because there are things that need doing."

"Are you sure you're a Howe?"

"No," said Nathaniel, and bitter irony sounded in his voice. "This time, I'm a Grey Warden. And I have known Claire Cousland long enough to recognise her even with another face."

"Thank you, Broody." Varric's voice was suddenly old and tired. "I guess you do understand more than you let on, huh? We'll wait for Archmage Wynne in the Keep, if that's okay with you. Though Maker knows I don't really want to look Hawke in the eye when she wakes up."

"My condolences. I've been told they were… close."

 _What?_

 _No._

 _No._

 _Please, Maker, please, I beg you, no._

Aedale opened her mouth and _screamed._

-/-

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** … Sorry.


	13. Unravelling

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part II: ANTEBELLUM**

 **Chapter 5: Unravelling**

"I'm sorry, Hawke, I'm so, so, so sorry… I should have killed them. I should have-"

"Stop, Isabela. Just stop."

"I-"

"She can't hear you. Stop. Please."

Words had no sense. Nothing had any sense. It was like that autumn morning after Hadriana when they woke up together and he said, _all I wanted was to be happy, just for a little while,_ and he closed the door. And he was gone. And the world was gone. Just the numbing pain left, nothing else, and she couldn't even feel the world crashing on her head before it broke. The face of the Arishok, triumphant and red-stained. She'd thought she'd die. She hadn't, and they'd hailed her the Champion, and the city cheered for her, and he was there, and he was at her side and she'd hoped it'd let him see how far she was willing to go protecting what she loved-

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

" _Isabela._ "

"She heard us, Varric! That shithead said 'my condolences' and-"

"I know."

"How can you even stay that fucking calm?! He was our friend, and he was her-"

"Shut the fuck up, Isabela."

"Varric. Varric, are you- no, not you too, okay, you can get back to being calm!"

The lyrium singing inside his skin, like a whispered music of something too taunting, too precious… she'd thought herself lost when she'd first sensed it, it felt like blood magic and in some way it was it, the white swirling scars on his skin covering the pulsating crimson streams… he was _temptation,_ and he'd always been, lyrium and blood and life energy, and the way he hated it felt like he just hated himself. But he loved _her, my choice of following you, my choice of loving you,_ he said in that little inn on the Wounded Coast, and she'd waited for him for three long years.

She felt something hot and wet on her hand, a softly falling raindrop.

"I'm sorry, Hawke," whispered Varric hoarsely. "So fucking sorry."

She could hear the whispers of demons coming from across the Veil, and they were all croaking her name.

-/-

 _The Arishok is charging at her again, and her hands are bloody where she'd fallen on them before. His eyes are glowing red._

" _You're no Champion."_

 _He lunges at her, and his shape changes mid jump – what lands on her is a white wolf with blood-stained teeth, red eyes and red mouth closing the distance to her face, there are swirling patterns of lyrium on his skin and she reaches out, embraces the wolf, waits for the gigantic teeth to close on her face -_

 _The wolf leaps over her in one easy jump, leaving her hands just grazing over the while fur, just an inch out of touch, and she's falling, falling into the endless abyss of the Fade, she hears a distant cry and suddenly the air is blood, she's choking, dying- there's a touch on her skin, she raises her head with final effort and it's Anders, his eyes are glowing blue, he's clearing out the air – she can breathe again - and stretching out his hand -_

" _Come with me. I'll free the mages for you. You've always known I loved you."_

" _I-" She struggles, but he reaches out and touches her face, and she's suddenly light and free, and there's a shining beam of golden light on the horizon, illuminating Anders' face, he's so hopeful and his ideals are worthy of following, worthy of trust…_

" _Get away from me." She twists away, and just for a second, before it splits into the rage of the desire demon, Anders' face falls in disappointment, and it breaks her heart._

" _He'll love you now. With the elf gone, he'll still love you. You still have someone out there who will. Do you want to find him?"_

" _Anders is-"But before she finishes, there's Anders again, the young version of him, his hair is down and his eyes are glimmering, there's no Fade light in them, just kindness and passion and light-hearted humour. She draws a shaky breath. "He's my best friend-"_

" _I love you, Hawke."_

" _I'd do anything for you, Anders. But don't ask me to-" The Chantry is falling, the debris is crushing the people of Kirkwall, and Anders is standing in the middle of the explosion, his expression unchanged, his kind eyes glimmering. Jean-Luc's head is poking out from under a piece of rubble, it's smiling. "It's for the mages," says the disembodied head. "It's what you wanted. It's on you. On you, on you, on you."_

 _And suddenly it's Fenris' face._

" _You wanted your staff." His lips are black, charred, his hair burned off, his eyes like the eyes of a fish, glazed over and watery and empty. He's reaching forwards, clutching the charred piece of wood marked by a lightning pattern; and the Fade concentrates over it, as if it almost became more real._

 _She touches him, and suddenly she's burning, and she's screaming, screaming, screaming-_

"Dear Maker." A woman's voice.

"With all due respect, lady, this is probably the worst thing you could say right now."

"No, it's not. I could have said, 'My condolences'," sounded a sharp rebuke. Varric did not reply. Aedale desperately tried to remember who said that last time, what it meant, why it was important-

 _the flames rise, and over the sound of her own screeching she hears the crashing tides, the ocean closes over her head and suddenly she's burning and drowning at the same time, and Fenris is there, his empty eyes boring into hers. Dead. Dead and it was her fault. One more name on the list, her list, there was the list of the dead and it was her fault. And there is no escape from the burning and drowning, and if it were she would not want it-_

" _Champion._ "

The voice resounded both in the Fade and in the physical world.

" _Listen to me. There is a choice to be made._ "

The choice. The choice of the Champion. _The list of the dead, and Fenris, and his lips kissing the tears off her face on the hidden path in the Vinmark, and she lowers her head to touch his temples, are you hurt, yes, I would never hit you, not just because I'm angry, and the walking corpse of Leandra Hawke, a badly-stitched doll walking through the flames-_

" _Champion._ "

Yes. She was still a Champion. 

" _Listen to me. You have to make a choice._ "

" _Yes," agrees Fenris as she curls against him, his protective hand against her stomach, they're in Kirkwall and he'd finally come back to her – and if it weren't for the mages and the templars and the fact that she still can't walk into mother's rooms without turning into a sobbing mess – she'd be happy. Fenris is there. She's waited for so long. But he's there. "Will you stay with me?" he asks softly, there's a deep husky tone in his voice and she wants, ah, she wants to say yes -_

" _Champion!_ "

 _The hand on her stomach stands ablaze, and she screams._

"What in the Voidare you doing-"

"Get _out,_ " snapped the woman, and the doors slammed violently.

" _You need to wake up, Champion. You're killing yourself._ "

" _Yes, and you should continue," taunts Fenris, "This is how you're going to be with me now, how else will you find me? You're good at killing. Keep going."_

 _She digs her nails into his skin, and he smiles, a real, open smile, something Fenris would never do, not like this – and the disguise slips, and she can see the demon baring her teeth at her._

" _Fight it, Champion!" The voice sounding in her head is strengthening, it's now clearer, louder. She looks forward and sees Bethany, hand in hand with Fenris, then there's Leandra and Malcolm Hawke, they are all smiling at her, and there is no warmth in that smile-_

" _You let us die. You made us die."_

" _I'm sorry."_

" _You're weak._

" _Yes." She closes her eyes. ("No!", yells the disembodied voice in her head.)_

" _The only thing you can do now is die."_

 _She thinks about it. Fenris looks at her, and there's forgiveness on his face, if she dies now she'll be forgiven. She hesitates-_

" _Whose Champion are you, Aedale Hawke? Who do you fight for?"_

 _It's a sharp arrow splitting the Fade – a clear cut through the illusions into raw truth._

" _Those who have none."_

" _Then make your choice, Champion. You stay and grieve, or you accept the challenge you are given. Your fight was never for you."_

 _She closes her eyes. There's nothing on the other side, nothing, nothing – except the responsibility._

" _I choose."_

 _A bolt of lightning splits the world._

 _And then there's white._

 _The Fade clears, and the illusions break under the weight of a powerful will. There is nothing save the empty horizon, and the looming shade of the Black City far in the distance; and a silhouette, white and shining in the empty grey, one single source of light._

" _Who are you?" she asks quietly._

" _Faith."_

" _Why…" She hesitates. In the Fade, words meant reality. "Why do you do this?"_

" _Because you need me. And before your time comes and the sky is torn asunder, you will need me again."_

" _Will I remember this?"_

" _Yes."_

" _I don't want to live anymore. Not without him. Not without everything else coming apart."_

" _Your life is not yours alone. For every life you touch, there is a responsibility. For every choice you make, there are consequences. And for a leader, there is no turning back until they have led."_

 _She considers the spirit's words. "But you're Faith. This has nothing to do with faith. Why are you telling me this?"_

" _Because this is what you believe in," says the spirit, and the world dissolves in soft white light._

-/-

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm just going to go and sleep on my pile of angst.


	14. Choice

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part II: ANTEBELLUM**

 **Chapter 6: Choice**

 _Hawke._ For a split second before she woke, a flash of white had the shape of a bird of prey, and it felt… familiar.A hawk. Hawke. Yes.

"Hawke!"

Aedale opened her eyes.

"Fucking finally!" cried Isabela, her voice breaking. Aedale blinked uncertainly, but the world didn't seem like the Fade anymore. There were several faces against the grey stone ceiling, leaning over her in different degrees of concern and desperation: Isabela, Varric, Nathaniel Howe, and… a white-haired woman with kind, patient eyes.

"A pleasure to meet you, Champion. Although it wasn't _you_ for whom I was called," said Wynne with just the slightest shade of rebuke.

Nathaniel pinked. "Claire must have forgotten about the letter before she went away. I've already told you that."

"Thank you, Nathaniel." Wynne didn't even look at him, like a patient schoolteacher who had elected not to question a transparent lie. "Can you speak, Champion?"

"Y-you," croaked Aedale. "You were there. You told me to-"

"That wasn't me, child." But her eyes softened, and Hawke saw in that second that Wynne understood the exact measure of her grief. "I'm a spirit healer. And you've been healed by a spirit that I guided to you."

"What happened?"

There was a pause. Varric sighed deeply and looked her straight in the eye. Suddenly he seemed very old and tired.

"The Chantry folk from Forthing, you remember them, Hawke? They… set our ship on fire. You were there. One arrow with a skins of oil, another one with the flame, and… You tried to save it, and Andraste only knows what you did, but you pulled the entire bay on us. And then you went off like a candle. You were out for days. The mages here couldn't do anything, they said some nugshit on how you've drained your own life along with all that magic…"

"Fenris," Aedale whispered through thickened throat, interrupting Varric's rambling. "Where is he?"

"He was below deck. We… couldn't find him, Hawke." Varric held her gaze for a long second and looked away. "It's not your fault. We shouldn't have let him-"

"I told him to." Aedale closed her eyes. "I told him to get my staff…"

"And he listened," said Wynne softly. "You've lost a great deal, Champion. It's okay to hurt. But you did everything you could to save him, and it almost killed you too."

 _We talked about it. This is the same conversation that we were having after Kirkwall. After the world had been blown up. This is all the same._

 _Except it isn't._

"Leave me alone." Her voice was creaking and thickened, but it sounded like the crack of the flames. She could feel the lightning in her veins, hissing angrily, impatiently – there was fury, fury to be unleashed and burn the village of Forthing to the ground, and the world with it, because the world _kept on taking everything from her and it was time to retaliate_. She let go-

And suddenly there was a white flash, and the power was gone.

"No." Wynne's voice was calm and allowed no protest. "You'll kill yourself if you do that."

Nathaniel looked at the both of them cautiously, blinking away the flash. "Do what?"

"See, my dear boy, when normal mages lose control, they change into abominations." Nathaniel grimaced at the _boy,_ and Wynne flashed a quick smile. "She, however… she is the daughter of Malcolm Hawke. So she just burns a hole through the fabric of the world. But right now all the magic she has is just about enough to keep her alive and breathing, so I _strongly_ suggest it stays inside." She cast a steely look at her patient.

"Leave," said Aedale in a calmer voice. "I want to be alone."

Isabela brushed her fingers across her arm. "Just say the word, Hawke. We'll be there for you."

"Leave. Please."

 _Fenris._

When the faces disappeared from her field of vision in various shares of concern, shame, and worry, Aedale closed her eyes and let herself cry.

-/-

The next days were filled with mourning silence. As soon as Hawke could sit up, she'd demanded parchment and a quill, and she stained the bedsheets with ink writing the letters to Aveline, Donnic, and Merrill. The ravens from Nathaniel's gift were sent with the letters, and she watched them fly away with impassive, empty eyes. _He'd bring me the letters to proofread. He never told me how it hurt his pride, but what'd hurt more would be sending badly spelt letters…_ She cried, but it didn't help, so she stopped.

She was empty – magicless, powerless, emotionless.

Nathaniel came once, offering stiff condolences one more time. She greeted him with a pale smile and asked about Jainen; he shook his head and said that there was no information. She thanked him for his hospitality. He waved his hand in an awkward dismissive gesture. Then he went away.

Wynne was more helpful, coming several times a day and pouring healing magic under her skin. Her own power seemed erratic, and the healer said it was because she'd stretched its limits to the brink and then emptied it all; it was returning slowly, but her control was frayed, and she lost her temper easily.

Wynne was patient.

"Why are you doing this?" asked Aedale on one particularly frustrating day, where for one moment she'd been almost able to walk comfortably – and then she'd collapsed on the corridor, so weak that she'd had to rely on the passing Grey Wardens to bring her back to the infirmary. "Don't you have a revolt going on in Kinloch Hold? Aren't you kind of busy?"

"Yes, and yes." Wynne moved her hands across her chest and shoulders, bathing her skin with soft blue glow. "I should be on my way right now. But I trust Nathaniel and his judgement."

Aedale snorted. "Yeah? And what's that?"

The healer shot her a long measuring look. "That you are worth keeping alive. For many reasons, some of them political."

"Political? I have no authority anymore, Enchanter-"

"Wynne," said the woman gently.

"Kirkwall is a flaming ruin. I've seen it. The mages are warring and divided, and we'll all get exterminated for Anders if this keeps up. I can't help you. I'll do whatever I can, but now… I've got nothing." _Nothing and no-one._ She swallowed with difficulty.

The older woman shook her head. "We are kept updated on the situation in Kirkwall. The situation there is far from resolved. Knight-Commander Cullen sent for aid, but the Divine is… concerned with the situation of the mages if the present trend continues. The Circles won't be help up by sheer force alone."

Aedale kept silent, churning through the new piece of information. _So Kirkwall is still a battlefield._ A crippling fear for Aveline and Merrill sent child down her spine. The amount of people she could not afford to lose was shrinking.

"And Jainen?"

"Probably all abominations." Wynne didn't raise her head, focused on her healing.

"What?!"

"Not many mages prefer self-destruction over possession, my child. And Claire knows that too, limited as her understanding of magic is. She's a Warden. She knows what kind of whispers wake when people are desperate."

"How are you so… so calm about it?" Aedale blinked furiously, looking at the white-haired woman incredulously. "This is a disaster. If this spreads through Ferelden, then…"

"I've seen a broken Circle before. You must have heard the stories." Wynne finally looked up and Hawke could see the lines of age around her tired eyes. "Sometimes we keep calm because none of the choices we have are good, and you won't choose the less evil one with a hot head… and you know that too, Champion, don't you?"

 _The choice of the Champion._ "But this is… this will be war! There will be a March-"

"You might wonder why I got here so soon after you fell ill," said Wynne. "I wasn't in Kinloch, as Claire has quickly learnt. I'd imagine that's why she didn't send the letter… poor Nathaniel needs to work on his excuses. I was already travelling to Cumberland. There will be a vote."

"The vote on what?"

"Disaffiliation," said the mage grimly. "The end of Templar control over the circles. The war is brewing, and we're debating the split of the structures that have kept us safe… But the College of Enchanters will decide. From then on, we'll see the dawn of the new world as it unfolds."

Aedale stared at her.

"A Circle is dying in our own land and you're only worried about politics?"

"Politics is hardly ever only about politics, my child." Wynne shot her a steely glance. "It is an easier way to coerce the other side to give us what we want, possibly without starting an all-consuming war. The Circle in Jainen is dead. There is nothing we can do to change it. What we can change is the future of the mages in Thedas."

" _You don't know if it's dead!_ " The fury in Aedale's voice surprised even herself. Wynne stopped the spell and looked at her with impassive eyes.

Heavy silence hung in the air.

"Aedale," started Wynne softly.

Hawke shook her head. "Don't call me that. This is the name I left behind long ago. And don't try to patronise me, Enchanter, I might be bedridden, but I'm not stupid. You're a political player, an Aequitarian, aren't you? And it's been quite a while since you've travelled with the Queen, right? 'Cause I'm have a sneaking feeling that she wouldn't approve of what you're doing now. She would go and save the people."

Wynne's eyes hardened. "Do not presume," she said slowly, "what you have no notion about."

"You know, I'm so sick of it." Hawke sat up straighter. "Since I walked off that ship, there's just so many things happening, and it seems I can't keep up. Things in the White Spire, things in Orlais, in the Free Marches, here in Ferelden. All because of one madman's explosion. But I think I can put the pieces together now. You, with Nathaniel the Smiley there, want to make sure I don't kill myself here with another magical explosion… not because you care so much about me, but because you need the Champion of Kirkwall here. In case the vote doesn't go your way. You want me to stand in front of the College and the Divine and say, this is how it started, this is why it was a mistake, this is why the mages of Kirkwall should band with us and return to the fold..." She balled her fists. "But you're a political player, Enchanter. I'm not. I'm first and foremost a mage, and I would _never_ abandon by own, and definitely not for the sake of supporting the status quo."

Wynne looked at her for a long moment, and then resumed the healing spell. The blue aura again enveloped her hands.

"You're sharp, my child," she said gently, with just the slightest edge in her voice. "And you're lashing out because of your grief. But you should not presume that my plans for you stretch any further than keeping you alive. All the other decisions will be yours to make."

"Like what? Helping the Divine clamp down on mage rebellion?" sneered Aedale.

"If need be," said Wynne with a calm face. She reached for Hawke's wrists and opened her tightly clenched fists; without a word, she held her hands over the insides of the scarred palms, healing the red, bloody half-moons where Hawke's nails bore into her skin.

"How can you do that?" asked Aedale after a long pause. "How can you… just take the Chantry's side and forget about the way we're tracked and trapped and stripped of own of freedom and emotions, how they demonise us and put the Templars at every door, and then, for the crimes of one man, they hunt us down and murder with cold blood? _How?_ "

"Because we are not better," said Wynne, and it suddenly sounded very, very tired; there was an echo of over fifty years of fruitless struggle in her voice.

"That cleric," said Aedale quietly. "She killed the mage first. In cold blood. But I let her live, because she was grieving too, she'd lost her sister in Kirkwall… I was thinking, I'd be the bigger man, I'd show that violence leads to more violence… And she killed Fenris. _She killed Fenris._ " Fire blossomed on her bloodied fists, fighting Wynne's blue glow.

"I'm so very sorry, my child," said Wynne with a soft voice. Aedale shook her head.

"No. You don't get this. This is the end. This is where all negotiations stop, and where I make my choice." _Choice of the Champion._ "I fought for the balance between the Chantry and the mages for almost ten years, Enchanter. And I owe you nothing. You can tell the Divine when she asks for me that I was willing to help them once. But then the Chantry _took Fenris away from me._ "

The red flame rose and engulfed Wynne's hands; she withdrew them quickly as if she'd had been burned. There was silence.

"It was one misguided woman looking for revenge," said Wynne after a long while.

"It was one desperate man looking for justice," said Aedale, her face white but firm. "And he blew up the world. And so we all pay the price."

 _But he didn't take Fenris away from me._ In the distance, she could her the cawing of the returning crows. 

"Is this final, Champion?" asked Wynne. "You will not stand before the College or the Divine?"

"I will not."

The healer nodded slowly, and she looked very, very old. "They will hunt you," she said, measuring every word like a dark, heavy lump of steel falling in between them. "They will blame you for everything. If they only can, they will send an Exalted March after you. You will be remembered as the mage who started the rebellion."

Aedale scoffed. "I couldn't tell you how little I care about all of this, Enchanter."

"Good." When Hawke looked at her, surprised, Wynne smiled bitterly. "You'll need that sort of attitude later on."

Aedale stared at her mutely. Wynne just shook her head and stood up.

"Nathaniel hoped you were going to be the one to end this. He wasn't wrong, I think. He just never thought that _end_ could mean the end of the world as we know it… but maybe that's not a bad thing. Maker knows that the world has been rubbish for a long time." She took her staff from the bedside and turned away. "Andraste bless you, child. You'll get your strength back soon. Now, however… I should move on to my traitorous politics, I believe."

She walked towards the door.

"Did you know my father in the Circle?" asked Aedale from the bed. Wynne turned back to her, offering a small smile.

"Yes. Malcolm was a handful. Very powerful, but a handful. I see it hasn't been lost in the family."

"No," said Aedale. "It hasn't."

-/-

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I'm imagining that Wynne and Malcolm knew each other quite well at the Fereldan Circle, and maybe even shared the escape plan – but as she did not quite have the guts, or the will, to follow it through, she ended up only helping him out. And maybe smuggling out some mage goodies for him later.

Honestly, someone needs to write up Malcolm Hawke's Great Escape, cloak-and-dagger style.


	15. Missing

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part II: ANTEBELLUM**

 **Chapter 7: Missing**

Hawke disappeared the next day.

Isabela had discovered it when she'd knocked on the infirmary door and found it half-opened; her curses were heard at the other side of the castle. Varric and Nathaniel were next, one furious, the other more annoyed than usual; after that, the news spread throughout the Keep that the Champion had vanished, leaving only the dirty bandages behind her. When Nathaniel found out that Wynne had also left earlier during the day, he let out a string of courses that rivalled those of Isabela.

"Why are those bloody mages so difficult to keep track of?"

"Because they're in the middle of it all," said Varric grimly. They were back in the Queen's office, Isabela pacing impatiently, Nathaniel staring at the pile of papers that was steadily growing by the day, and Varric just simply clenching his fists. "They're like the ten in a dart game… always the bloody hardest to get. She can't have gone far. She's half dead right now, and more than half mad from grief. Grandma saw her last, perhaps they are together."

"The guards have seen Wynne leave alone," said Nathaniel. "She left a note to the Queen and went away. I sent people after both of them, but I doubt we can find a mage that doesn't want to be found."

"Fat lot of good that Warden business does you, then," said Isabela snarkily. "Can't you just let her mabari out and see where he goes? Where's that dog anyway?"

"Gone," said Varric. "That was the second thing I checked."

"What was the first?"

"Her list of the dead," answered the dwarf grimly. "I took it away from her when she was unconscious. It's gone from my sacks now."

Isabela cursed foully.

"I swear, the moment I get my hands on her…"

"If the dog is with her, we can use our mabari to track them by his scent," said Nathaniel, picking up a forgotten dog whistle from the mess on the desk. "She could make herself untraceable, but not him. We'll find her. Any ideas where she would go?"

Isabela blanched. "Fuck."

"What," Varric said blankly as they both looked at her in alarm. "Don't tell me. You just had a brilliant idea about where Hawke is, and we're all in deep nugshit because of that."

"I know where she's gone," said Isabela. Nathaniel sighed deeply and put on his longbow.

-/-

They were too late - the thick cloud of greasy black smoke was visible from the distance, darkening the entire horizon. The sparse Warden group accompanying them started cursing quietly behind their backs; the dogs they'd brought were scraping their noses helplessly, pulling on the leashes to get away from the awful scorching smell.

Forthing's Chantry was burning.

"There's no way we can track anyone in that smoke, Captain," said one of the Wardens to Nathaniel. "It's just hurting the mabari."

"Jonas, take them away," ordered Nathaniel with an unreadable expression. "Get to the Keep and send us an elemental mage. The rest of you, with me."

The Warden obeyed and unleashed the dogs; with one sharp command, they sprang forward, running away from the thick smoke, and the man followed. Varric coughed.

"That's about it for tracking Hawke in this mess."

The fire brigade from Amaranthine was already there, passing buckets of water in a chain that seemed all too familiar from several days before. Isabela cringed; the cracking of the flames brought in the raw recollection of several days before. Nathaniel barked a short order and the Wardens joined the brigade, working in an effective tandem.

They stared forward. The stone skeleton of the building seemed intact; it was the inside that was burning, the thick black smoke coming from the roof and poisoning the air. They could see how the emblem of the Sun melts and bends in the fire, before finally collapsing in the heat. The flames licking the roof were angrily, vengefully red.

"Casualties?" asked Nathaniel.

"None, Captain." The Warden in front of him shook his head curtly. "They said a dragon did it, Captain, or a phoenix. They say they'd heard a terrifying cry of a bird of prey, and they all ran out; and then the fire started."

" _What_ bird of-" Nathaniel trailed off. He closed his eyes for a second. "Thank you, Bart," he said. But the Warden had not finished yet.

"They say it was the vengeance for the lighting the Champion's ship on fire, Captain. Everybody knows that this is the cleric's fault. And now the Champion had summoned a phoenix to rain hell down on Forthing, the mage she is."

"Bart, you're friends with mages in the Keep." Nathaniel looked his subordinate straight in the eye. "Would they be able to do it? Think about it."

The Warden hesitated. "She's the Champion, Captain. There are stories."

"Most of them fabricated by yours truly," muttered Varric under his breath.

"As of now, we don't know who did this," said Nathaniel, accentuating his words with curt gestures. "And as the Wardens, the only thing we care about in our lands is _peace and order._ The fire will be extinguished and the culprit found. That is all."

"Yes, Captain." The Warden gave a quick bow and walked back to the line of fire brigadiers.

Left alone at the light of the burning Chantry, Varric, Isabela, and Nathaniel looked at each other.

"She did it," said Nathaniel. It wasn't a question.

Varric cursed under his breath. "Cry of a bird of prey? For fuck's sake, this story basically writes itself. Maker's flaming asscheeks, Hawke…"

"She had a right," said Isabela, looking at Nathaniel provokingly, as if she was inviting him to disagree. "They burnt our ship. They killed her lover. This is less than they deserve."

Nathaniel shook his head. "Believe me, I know how it feels to crave vengeance," he said, and there was a strain in his voice; the heritage of the house Howe lurking close to the surface. "But if law were enforced by strength alone, we'd all be ruled by tyrants. She is not law. She _cannot_ be law."

"She made them go outside. She didn't kill anyone," said Varric almost pleadingly. "She's mad from grief, Broody, they killed her lover! And if you let the news out that _another_ mage burned down a fucking Chantry in Ferelden…"

These words hung in the air, heavy and thick like the smoke.

One more burned temple…

The scale of the world was tipping.

Nathaniel stared at the flames, his face unmoving. "I suppose," he said slowly, "There are many candles in a Chantry. The local cleric has been known to be… careless around fire. When they heard a strange noise from the outside, and all the faithful hurried to leave… it's just a matter of one man knocking over a candle next to the draperies…"

Varric lowered his head in mute gratitude.

"She was still wrong to do it," said Nathaniel quietly. Something of an understanding passed through the dwarf's face.

"Wonderful woman, that Claire Cousland, right?" he said almost conversationally, staring straight ahead. "To the point. Very powerful. And I've heard she's also quite pretty. Right, Isabela?"

The pirate raised one eyebrow at him.

"Your point, dwarf?" said Nathaniel briskly.

"It's a pity she's taken. With the King himself, no less"

The Warden's face flushed with an ugly purple shade. In the red light of the fire, the effect was striking. " _What._ "

"I'm not saying anything," replied Varric, uncharacteristically passing on an opportunity to ridicule. "Perhaps, though, just perhaps, if there were someone left behind, waiting for her to pass by, for years and years and years… they would do everything in their power to help her. Or to help… someone _like_ her. Someone similarly powerful. Dare I say, similarly broken. With the same sort of light and the same sort of darkness. They'd know the type."

Nathaniel stuttered. The purple blush was spreading across his face to his ears, creating a grotesque contrast with his black hair. "This is not the time nor the place to discuss that. _If_ there were anything to discuss, that is. Which there is not."

"Oh," said Isabela, finally catching on. "You have a crush on good ol' Claire? This is very sweet, but you need to stand in line. That woman left more people in love with her than _I_ did, and that's one hell of an achievement."

"I am _not_ harbouring any sort of feelings towards my Commander-"

"Except respect, perhaps. I wasn't suggesting anything more," cut him off Varric, shooting Isabela a nasty glance. "All I was saying was that… if there were someone in a similar situation, he would be a good man to help out another woman. And he would be thanked."

Nathaniel stared at the fire with a blank expression. His face was cold, the flush slowly fading away with obvious conscious effort. Varric looked away; but Isabela did not, and she saw the raw sorrow and longing hidden in Nathaniel's dark eyes.

"You're welcome," he said.

The fire crackled and breathed dark smoke. It was slowly dying down, thanks to the effort of the fire brigade and the Wardens; suddenly the world wrinkled and a mage Fade-stepped out of nothing, scaring the more religious of the brigadiers. The staff swirled in her hands and a small ball of water rose from the cisterna, splashing out at the fire. Soon a steady chain of flying water followed the chain of buckets, and the flames died down, hardly seen anymore from outside the black, charred stone.

"I don't suppose it's any worth looking out for Hawke?" said Isabela after a long pause.

"We'll look after the fire is put out," replied Nathaniel. His face was still unreadable. "We'll find her."

After the Wardens had finished extinguishing the fire, it was long after sunset; the dogs were brought back, and they sought the trail all night long, but they did not find anything.

-/-

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Of course. The healer told you not to do magic? Go burn some churches to the ground and then disappear. Aedale Hawke, Listening to The Doctor's Advice since 9:11 Dragon.


	16. The Fall of the Champion

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part II: ANTEBELLUM**

 **Chapter 8: The Fall of the Champion**

Hawke was shivering so violently that her teeth clattered in a loud, ominous rattle. She clutched Vindr tightly, drawing on the warmth that the dog seemed to emanate, but it wasn't enough; she was drained, and the world was slowly disappearing in a kaleidoscope of Faded colours and lights…

A wet lick brought her back for a short second, before she plunged back into the unreality. Vindr shifted uncertainty, feeling that his mistress was unwell, but unsure what to do about it.

"S-stupid," moaned Hawke into his ear, clutching his thick neck like a lifeline. "S-stupid mage, stupid Hawke, the fire… the Fade-step… too much. Must… must…" She let out a quiet whimper, and the dog licked her face again. She tumbled to the side, falling flat on her back, and curled around the dog again. "Fenris… Fenris."

Vindr let out a quiet, mournful whine.

They were in a little cave at the site of the Wounded Coast; the wind was whistling loudly through the holes that thousands of years of water made in the stone, and Hawke was _cold._ It wasn't just wind; there had been fire inside her, once, the red spirals of flaming ribbons nestling around her heart. But they were gone. The storm was raging outside.

She'd Fade-stepped from Forthing the moment she'd seen the fire catch on; without a chance to focus, she'd torn the Fade randomly, out of sheer luck landing on the coast and not in the sea. Vindr, dragged along through the Fade, had howled and whined, but hadn't let go of his mistress.

She hugged the dog closer.

It was all too similar to when Fenris had gone away from her; those dull, cold mornings inside the empty Amell mansion, when Bodahn was at the market and Oriana hid in the kitchen, still not quite believing she was allowed out; Hawke would wander her own house like a gloomy spectre haunting a place of long-lost happiness, without father, without Bethany, without Carver, without mother, without… _without Fenris._ Only Vindr would follow her every step silently, his heavy head bobbing up and down as he climbed the stairs of the vestibule alongside her. She closed her eyes, her mind slipping from the present.

Vindr made a loud, pathetic noise.

Something was off. Something… the reality was quivering like a string that was set a little bit too loose, like the hot air over the flame reflected the light in a different way.

Hawke crawled away from the buzzing sensation of something being _not right, not right,_ but it only strengthened; and when she closed her eyes, the whispers hit her.

 _Underneath. Underneath. Red shadows underneath, the pulsating blood in your veins, marked, chosen, special, ours, red, red, red._

Vindr started growling, a deep, primeval sound of a threat.

She opened her eyes and, scrambling to sit up, she raised her head – and, glimmering dangerously at the far end of the cave, there was red lyrium.

The raw power radiating from it almost blinded her. She had been so empty, ravenous for anything to fill the void inside after the fiery ribbons of power had vanished from her chest; and now that was the magical equivalent of a royal feast spreading in front of her. The temptation was too great; somewhere at the back of her head, she could hear a tiny voice of reason yelling at her angrily to stop and think, but the lyrium was there, and she needed, oh, she _needed_ it. She stretched out her hand – the whispers shimmered in excitement –

Vindr bit her.

She recoiled, swearing, and tumbled backwards. There was no blood – Maker only knows what she'd do if she saw her own blood now, too tempting, too tempting – but and angry red mark blossomed on her skin. Pain sharpened her senses, clearing the thick red fog of confusion she'd been drowning in. The lyrium was singing, yes, it sang like its normal blue kind, and it was whispering, but it was _angry,_ and it seemed… it seemed…

 _Evil._ The picture of Meredith turned into red lyrium statue in the torched Gallows flashed in her mind before she suppressed it. Hawke swallowed with difficulty.

"Good dog," she said. Vindr looked at her with his intelligent animal eyes; he did not seem placated. "Not… not turning into Meredith. Not yet."

She crawled away from the lyrium, slipping in and out of reality with every uncertain push; the walls of the cave seemed to be swirling, dancing ominously around her… The red mineral kept singing from behind her, overpowering, angry, _powerful,_ but as its song grew more distant she could hear the desperation in it, a hopeless desire to be found by a living creature. Lyrium… wanted to be touched. Wanted to be consumed, wanted to be… to be…

 _Wanted to eat._ Aedale shuddered. _We're not taking lyrium for power…_ it _is taking_ us _._ Through the double-vision of delirium she could see the foggy contours of the Fade covering the cave, but the lyrium was the same. It existed in two worlds simultaneously, like all mages, like herself… and like Fenris.

 _My staff._ Thinned lips, tightly clenched fists, obedience. He had obeyed her, in the end. She had called for her staff and he… he had gone to fetch it.

And he died.

 _Your fault, your fault, your fault, your fault,_ sang red lyrium. _You never freed him. You were too selfish ever to truly give him freedom… He just traded a master for a mistress._

No. Not true. It couldn't be true, not if she wanted to keep her sanity. She loved him. And he loved her, and that was why he listened…

 _He listened, and he obeyed, and it killed him,_ the lyrium taunted her from behind. 

She crawled out of the cave on the pouring rain. In an instant the water soaked her to the core; she could hardly see anything through the furiously pounding raindrops assaulting her eyes, forcing her to keep them closed. Her clothes – whatever she had managed to steal from the Grey Wardens equipment when she fled – were cold, damn and muddy. She was shivering, freezing, on the verge of utter exhaustion.

The sea was crashing and roaring.

Hawke raised her head with the last effort. She had pulled this sea, just days ago. She had made it obey her… she had taken the sea and made it do her bidding. This was nothing else. Nothing different… She reached out in the direction of the crashing waves.

"Obey me," she whispered through the thickened throat. "Give him back. Give him _back._ " She got up on her knees; her words were swallowed whole in the roar of the waves. " _GIVE HIM BACK!_ "

The blinding light of the lightning split the sky. Hawke felt the jolt of energy as if it went through her own veins. Her entire body shook convulsively; she fell onto the muddy rock, squeezing her eyes shut, waiting for the white-hot blinding pain to fade away.

Vindr howled wildly.

 _This is the end._

And suddenly someone's thin, strong fingers clasped on her arm decisively, and then there was nothing.

-/-

It was warm. Warmer than anything in the Marches, or Ferelden, or even the cities of Tevinter. It was hot and humid, and his lungs protested when Fenris drew in a shaky breath and opened his eyes.

His hands were clutching Hawke's makeshift, torched staff.

And in front of him, swaying with the sound of the crashing northern gales behind his back, spread the jungles of Seheron.

-/-

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA! I GOT YOU! Seriously though. It's not like I was going to kill off the main character's love interest.

This is the end of Antebellum! Thank you for making it this far with me. The third part, "Sea and Lightning", is currently being written – I will let you know as soon as it's finished so I can start publishing the chapters in a regular manner. With Antebellum focused mostly on the arson and Fenris' death (hmpf disappearance), "Sea and Lightning" will hopefully shed more light on what is actually going on in Jainen, the case of red lyrium, and one elf's journey back to Ferelden. Expect to see good old Stroud and Her Highness Warden-Commander Claire Cousland, and – as Hawke learns more about her magic and its origins – a certain troublemaker from the Inquisition…


	17. Pride

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 1: Pride**

 _I'm really, really tired,_ thought Hawke hazily, as she blinked away the darkness, _of waking up in a strange place not knowing how I got there._

It was a hermit's hut. They had passed many of them in their endless roaming. They all had slightly damp wooden walls, a significant lack of furniture within them, and a difficult to describe strong herbal smell.

She had to admit that his hut was even more ascetic than many others she had seen. The only things the wooden room seemed to contain were a couple of woven rugs; she was laying on one, covered with another, and the third one lay in the middle of the room as a hermit's equivalent of a comfortable armchair.

And, sitting cross-legged on the top of it, was the hermit himself, his back perfectly straight and his eyes closed in deep meditation. He was holding a small necklace of wooden prayer beads between his folded hands.

He was a pale bald elf, tall and lean, covered in typically peasant clothing that would not spare him a second look in any alienage – except perhaps a strange bone amulet on his chest, more fitting for a Dalish. Although his forehead was creased with age, his body belied it; he seemed strong and wiry like a warrior – an unlikely quality for a hermit, Hawke decided, suddenly growing wary. With his closed eyes and utter focus on something beneath her sight, he appeared deceitfully vulnerable – or, she thought, like someone who might for some reason _want_ to appear vulnerable.

Her focus slipped and suddenly she realised that the wooden walls weren't, as she had thought, _empty_ – they were just free of furniture. The entire interior of the hut was covered in paintings; soft, delicate colours against almost violent angular lines of black and red. The painter seemed intent on defying the time itself; one building, a delicate white tower, in a strange trick of perspective seemed at the same time at the height of its beauty – and burning. Another, a strange architectural structure of no obvious perspective and many walls just fading into one another, seemed almost mobile; at the same time together and falling apart, it made Hawke's head hurt when she stared at it for a long moment. Then there were silhouettes, men and women in intricate colourful clothing, all of them tall and lean like royalty, and – as much as she could see – all of them with long pointed ears… Their faces were simple, painted with just several well-measured lines, yet they all almost _screamed_ the emotions: joy, quiet contentment, meditation, interest, surprise, fear, pain… As Hawke turned her head around the hut she realised that there was a careful pattern in which everything was positioned. One full turn was the study of a rise of the civilisation… the other, in the opposite direction, was its fall.

"Does it interest you?"

She expected the voice for quite a while, but it still made her shiver. The elf did not move, did not open his eyes; he just sat there, motionless, his fingers clasped firmly on the prayer beads.

He had an accented, educated voice that sounded less like a hermit and more like an academic.

"Yeah," she said with full sincerity. "It's a story, right? Of the elves?"

"My people's," said the stranger and finally opened his eyes. To her slight disappointment, they weren't striking in any way – just an ordinary pair of grey-and-blue irises, sharp and focused, but without any eerie glow. "You are lucky I found you, Aedale Hawke. You were dying."

"Was I? Must've slipped my mind." She sat up and realised that indeed, she felt much more alive than the last time she had been awake; the empty sensation close to her heart was still there, but at least it wasn't threatening to swallow her whole. Her magic seemed to be back in place, even if it felt slightly strange… but she did not feel the craving need to fill herself with any magic possible. She remembered the red lyrium and shuddered.

A piece of memory fell into place.

"Where's my mabari?"

"Outside," said the hermit with a subtle hint of annoyance in his voice. It seemed to say, _of course it's outside. As all dogs are meant to be._

Aedale shook her head.

"You're not Fereldan, are you?" One thing hit her. "You actually convinced my dog to leave me and wait outside? How are you still alive after that?"

The elf smirked slightly. "I have my ways." He must have been a teacher once, decided Aedale; he had that authoritative glance that bypassed the reasoning and reached straight for obedience. She heard a quiet scraping on the door; Vindr must have heard her voice and now he was making himself heard – though she was surprised at how subtly.

She looked back at the elf, who seemed not to mind the scraping at all and just sat there, radiating quiet confidence. "Who are you? How do you know who I am?"

"All elves know the messenger of Asha'bellanar," he said, and Hawke got a strange impression that it was not an answer – it was simply presenting a fact in such a light that it seemed like one.

"You're Dalish, then? I'm friends with the Dalish. Thanks for… saving me, I guess. And you just happened to stumble upon my almost-corpse?"

"It wasn't particularly difficult." The elf grimaced slightly. "You tore through the Fade like a comet, with the similar subtlety… And you landed where it was weakest."

It sounded reasonable. Hawke nodded thoughtfully, concluding with that should really have been obvious from the start: that her unlikely saviour was an apostate mage.

Quite a fussy one, at the sound of it.

"Sorry if I tore it too badly. Next time I'm fleeing for my life whilst half-dead, I'll try to be more careful."

"It would be much appreciated indeed." A half-smile ghosted on the elf's face.

"So, do you have a name?" said Aedale conversationally. "Or can I just call you a Mysterious Old Hermit Apostate? It shortens to MOHA. Just for convenience's sake."

"You can." The elf smiled at something she couldn't see. "It's either that or… Fastus."

"That's not a name," said Aedale without thinking. "That just means 'pride' in Tevene."

"Oh, and 'Hawke' is a completely independent word with no additional meaning outside of it being just a surname… without even considering Aedale, which in Old Fereldan would stand for 'the law of the valley'. You truly command an exceptional intellect, Champion."

Aedale leered at him unfavourably.

"Fake names are fine," she said, "But as you are obviously aware of my real one, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here."

Fastus shrugged. "Names are irrelevant. The meaning comes from the object, not from the sound. And may I just point out, Champion, that I have saved you and tended to you while you were on the brink of death… does my choice of withdrawing my true name still consists your disadvantage in your view?"

Aedale lowered her gaze in agreement, outmanoeuvred. _Yep. Definitely a teacher._

"What happened to me?" she asked in a more reconciliatory tone.

"A great many things," said Fastus. "Grief. Exhaustion. Distrust. Disbelief. Anger. And then… you have pushed away your native power, it seems. For a human to survive that…" The last sentence he muttered almost under his breath, falling back into meditation. Aedale stared at him for a long while, but seemed like the elf was not going to say anything else. His eyes went glassy and unfocused.

"Fastus?" she asked uncertainly. No reaction elicited. _Of course. Not with a false name._ She slowly stood up and leaned against the wall, expecting nausea and dizziness; but nothing happened. He must have healed her in more than one way. She walked to the middle of the room and reached out to his shoulder; but her fingers stopped inches away, hesitant.

Maker only knew how many elven taboos she was about to break right now…

His head moved ever so slowly in her direction, his glassy eyes refocusing on her face. A sudden realisation dawned on Hawke: the stranger was _weak,_ cripplingly, pathetically weak, and whatever the power he seemed to be commanding, it had to be only a fleeting shadow of what he'd used to be.

And he would probably not appreciate someone realising it.

She withdrew her hand as she'd been burnt.

Fastus' eyes blinked slowly and he was looking straight at her.

"Who have you lost?"

Aedale recoiled. A deep knot of grief in her belly started radiating that cold, sickly sensation that she'd almost forgotten for those short minutes, covered under the focus and surprise of a new place and strange man – but now it was there, and it seemed impossible to forget about it again. _Fenris._ "Excuse me?"

"I said: who have you lost?" said Fastus with the unnerving exactness in pronunciating every single sound. Suddenly she felt that even if she wanted to lie, the elf would somehow know the truth.

"Everyone," she said with heavy sincerity.

The elf nodded. "So have I. Sit with me."

He moved, making space on the rug. Aedale obeyed, crossing her legs and straightening her back to mimic his position. She could see that the middle of the room was also the main point from which all the paintings were meant to be viewed; she could appreciate the masterful brushstrokes creating a carefully planned perspective, the clarity of the elven faces, the softened contours of the backgrounds further away. As the visual story turned, told from one side or the other, the focal point that seemed to bind it together was the door of the hut; the creature on it was howling, angry, desperate… painted with almost violent splashes of harsh, angular contour, and filled with deep dark brown, the wolf was biting through a thin blue line.

As Aedale looked around from her seat, she realised that the line continued throughout the room. She moved her head, and its blueish glow seemingly disappeared; it had obviously been meant to be seen from this one point in the room only. It was carefully composed into all the pictures and scenes, interwoven in their contours, the complex structures of the keeps and towers, and the long silky robes of the elves. From her perspective she could see it almost glistening; soft, singular and unbroken, it held the circular history together – until it finally came to the wolf.

The paintings screamed of sadness and longing.

Aedale released the breath she had not noticed herself holding.

"They're beautiful," she said sincerely. The elf did not move or react in any way; she could barely hear his slow, even breathing. She took a deep breath and tried to adjust her own breath to match his. After a long, uncomfortable minute she stopped, almost gasping for air; Fastus did not seem to need it at all.

"You've given up your native power," said the elf. "Your birthright. Why?"

Aedale considered the question. It could only refer to one moment: that one crystal-clear second of desperation, when she had realised that the burning beams were crushing the deck and that Fenris was trapped inside… and she pulled the sea to save him.

 _And failed,_ whispered the voice of red lyrium in her head.

"I tried to protect the last thing I loved."

"What was that you gave up?"

"I don't understand." Hawke blinked uncertainly. The wolf at the door seemed to snarl at her.

"What was your native power, Champion?" The voice of the elf was calm, without a hint of annoyance, and yet she sensed that he was very carefully hiding his impatience.

"You mean… what my magic was like when I didn't do anything with it? It was fire. Always fire." That much was true. In the corner of her vision she could see the elf give one slow nod, as if she'd passed some sort of a test.

"It's gone now, that fire from my chest" she heard her own voice say, and she paused, bizarrely terrified at her raw sincerity. But it seemed like the old mage would understand – and after so many years of being unable to explain her own magic to anyone but a non-mage, a blood mage, or a fanatic, a part of her _craved_ understanding. "It's always been there, like a warmth inside me… Like something that always kept me aware that I'm alive. You know?"

"Yes," said Fastus. "I know."

"But it's gone now. I… pushed it away from me, I reached into the sea, and into my own blood, I… I don't know what I did, I pulled the ocean. But it didn't save him."

It sounded even worse than in her thoughts, hearing those words out loud. But for all the crushing blackness they brought with them, at least they were out.

"You're powerless," said Fastus quietly. "You are barely alive, and you lost your strength. But you shall regain it again."

There was something strange in the way he said it. Aedale felt like the elf was making a decision.

"I will help you."

Only later, when she remember his words, she realised that he could have not been speaking about her.

-/-

 _-/-_

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Welcome to **Sea and Lightning: the third instalment of** **"the Choice of the Champion," a series intended to retrace Hawke's journey from Kirkwall to Adamant.** (You can find part one, 'On the run', and part two, "Antebellum", on my profile.) "Sea and Lightning" is focused around Hawke regaining her strength and learning about the origins of magic – as well as red lyrium, a trail that will lead her all the way to the Fortress of Adamant. It is also a story of Fenris returning home… and then finding a way to return home again. Do subscribe/bookmark, and while you're at it you can leave a comment! I'd really really appreciate that. Thanks for being here, and have a nice read!

Also, we all know who Fastus really is, right?


	18. Harellan

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 2: Harellan**

Fastus was a mystery wrapped in a secret.

Much of his helping her, as she learned quickly, consisted of spending endless hours on the rug in the middle of the hut. At first she had been patient; she hadn't been meditating for a long time, and her control over her own mind was frayed. But as the day grew longer and longer, her resolve started to wane; first she started to yawn, then stretch, then she dared a look at the elf's unmoving, perfect form. After a while she started leaving the hut on her own and leaving him alone; he did not seem to mind.

The first instinct, as she gleefully greeted her mabari, was to leave the hermit behind and go on – to the nearest safehouse of the Mage Collective, and from there to Jainen. Yet when she considered that option, it did not seem rosy – she'd hardly had the strength to survive on her own for several hours, and she could imagine that Fastus would not be so kind to save her _again._ Without magic and without any equipment, she was unlikely to make it… and the elven hermit did offer his help.

She could at least give him a chance.

And although it burned to hide from the world _again_ when everything seemed to fall to pieces, Aedale shut off the screaming voices of duty and responsibility and told herself that it was time to first _think_ before jumping into danger unprepared.

She wasn't sure whether they were still in Ferelden; even if they were, the place seemed unimportant enough that she doubted anyone would look for them. Hermit huts were common enough in Thedas, its wilds still uncharted enough that they disappeared in the endless greenery, and this one looked as harmless as it could. It was just a basic wooden shack, built in the middle of a small clearing that allowed just enough of cool autumn sunlight to get through the canopy of leaves, but not quite enough to warm it up. After short wandering, she found a stream nearby; its water was crystal clear, and so icy that when she tried to drink, it stung her tongue and elicited a piercing pain in her teeth. And yet Fastus seemed perfectly clean. _Ah,_ thought Hawke with no small dose of disdain as she dipped her toe in the stream and bit back a curse, _he's the self-hating kind of hermit._

She bathed herself as quickly and as thoroughly as she could, considering the terrible temperature, and – her teeth clattering violently – rushed back to the hut. Not minding the still silhouette in the middle, she wheezed past him and wrapped the two remaining rags around her.

After that she carefully lowered herself next to him in a still cold, but infinitely more comfortable bundle.

"Fastus?" she probed.

" _Aneth ara, da'len._ " The elf's answer was clear and conscious, with the warmth that surprised her – but when she looked at him in incomprehension, she saw that his eyes were still closed. Whoever he was speaking to so softly from the depths of his meditation, it wasn't her.

"Er, it's me. Hawke. Remember? You healed me. Though I think it's safe to say that I'm decidedly not Dalish…"

The last word seemed to elicit some sort of reaction. Fastus grimaced; he blinked slowly, seemingly raising himself up from the deep focus.

"What do you want?" he asked in a low rasp, his accent thicker than before. Hawke felt a tinge of irritation.

"You said you'd help me. You sure _you_ don't need help yourself?"

"Nonsense." He stood up in one smooth motion and walked out of the shack, leaving the door unlocked as an implicit command to follow. Stunned, she obliged.

"Not that I'm complaining, but it is kind of a rollercoaster with you."

Ignoring her, the elf procured an armful of firewood from the pile carefully stacked up behind the bush – she'd missed it – and dropped it at her feet. "Light the fire. I'm going hunting."

With that, he was gone – a couple of steps and his shapeless green tunic disappeared amongst the trees.

"Oh, bollocks," murmured Hawke to Vindr, who approached her confused. "And I thought Fenris had an attitude problem."

She heard the words only after they'd come out of her mouth, and they _stung_ like a punch to the gut. The mabari let out a quiet whimper at the familiar name.

 _He's gone. He's gone and not coming back. He's not just away, or on a mission, or doing his own thing, or just across the road. He's gone, and I'm never going to see him again._

She'd thought it hurt before. But it was nothing compared to _this_ – the realisation of how final his death was.

It was just like that evening when she'd sat to the dinner table, watching Orana shuffle around graciously with the plates and glasses, and without thinking she'd called mother down to join her…

After that she'd asked Orana to start bringing her dinner to the study room. She couldn't bear to sit at that long table alone.

She stared at the pile of firewood at her feet for a long while, letting the image of timber fill her mind until there was nothing else, just the wet brown colour of the bark… Then, after an eternity of thought, she crouched and resolved to make a bonfire.

 _It wouldn't be more difficult than burning down a Chantry, right? Even now I can do it._

When the sun leaned down and the shadows grew longer, Fastus came back to see her irritated, angry and cursing at the neatly stashed wooden cone. It wasn't even singed.

The elf did not make any comment as he slipped down on the grass, laying a neatly shot hare in between them, but she eyed him up angrily. "What is _wrong_ with this wood?!"

"Nothing," he said. "I suspected that would happen. Your fire has gone away, Aedale Hawke."

A cold shiver that went through her was even worse than bathing in that icy stream. "Just Hawke, please. And _what?!_ "

"You heard me."

"I burned that fucking Chantry to the ground. And that was _after_ I pulled that wave. It doesn't make any _sense_."

"There were at least four different magical signatures in you when I found you. Who healed you?" Fastus took out a knife and started skinning the rabbit with practiced ease; almost without thinking, he made a curt gesture and the bonfire roared with flame. Aedale bit back a curse. She could feel the energy spring up to life so effortlessly in front of her, but it was- it was _blocked_.

"A couple of Warden mages, or so I was told, and a spirit healer."

"What spirit?"

"Faith," snarled Aedale, anger bubbling up to the surface. "Will you _tell_ me what's wrong with me, or will you just keep asking questions and falling back asleep without answering any of mine?"

Fastus cast her a long glance. She felt her annoyance slowly dim, replaced by uncertainty.

"You're not a normal mage, are you."

"No," he said slowly, with slow, measured words. "I am very old, and I have little patience for the rushing of humans. I have offered to help. But do not mistake my outstretched hand for endless benevolence."

Aedale remembered the angry wolf snarling on the door of the hut. _Endless benevolence? More like a flash of humanity in the middle of a war crime._ Still – there was something about the elf that seemed to make him, despite all his moodiness and aloof nature, a valuable ally.

And there was also this vulnerability, that flash of weakness she couldn't have imagined… He was struggling too.

She breathed and tried to remember the basic elvhen words that Merrill taught her once – when impressing her Keeper still seemed like the most important thing on her daily agenda, beyond saving the city and the world and the mages. Maybe he just needed to be treated like every other stuck-up Dalish elder…

" _Ir abelas, hahren,_ " she said, and she saw the surprise on Fastus' face. His hand on the knife shivered, as if she had touched a taut string. "I did not mean to slight your… ahem… outstretched hand. I thank you for the offer of help. I would be honoured to take it."

He was still, very still, and she blinked in uncertainty. "I did say it right, didn't I? _I apologise, my elder?_ Oh Maker, tell me I didn't say something ridiculous like 'so where are you hiding your hamsters' or 'I loathe your flower compositions'. In my defence, you can see that I'm not exactly the native Elvhen speaker. I'm told I am not quite angular enough in the ear department."

That brought a reaction, a weak ghost of a smile.

"Your ears excuse you, Champion." His voice sounded as if it was coming from far, far away.

"So," said Aedale cautiously, intent to steer the conversation back where it mattered, "What _is_ wrong with me? And why is that connected to people that healed me?"

Fastus resumed his skinning of the hare. It was difficult to make the task neat, but he was somehow managing.

"Magic," he said, a little bit more contemplatively, "takes its form from the world in which it is reflected, similarly as the Fade does. Especially elemental magic, tied to the most physical aspects of natural power, has a strong physical form in the shape of its element… and yours was fire."

 _Such_ an academic, thought Hawke. But at least he started explaining things.

"Every mage has a natural preference for a power. Their capacity to carry it within themselves…" _the red fiery ribbons around her heart, swirling and crackling with light and heat, always there, forming every breath_ "… is what we call a _native power._ This is the basic form of your magic, and what holds you in alignment with it. You have been undermining that alignment for weeks, Champion."

 _Of course._ The blast, the fall… and the hell that followed. Aedale squeezed her eyes shut. She remembered Kirkwall too well. She did not want to be a mage anymore-

-and then the ship, and the long evenings spent squishing the aura under her skin, forcing the power to simmer restlessly, her own fear of losing control, of giving in to the demons, or to the white-hot fury of the spinning flames that cut through reality like a dagger…

… and then the flames of the ship, the fire threatening to swallow her life whole.

"I destroyed my own magic," she said through thickened throat. "I didn't want it. I hated it. It brought me nothing but despair."

"What did the spirit of Faith say to you in the Fade?" asked Fastus, his voice gentler this time. She still recoiled.

"How do you know that's relevant?"

"I don't."

She cast him a long look. "She asked me whose Champion I was. Who I fought for."

"What is the answer, Champion?"

Aedale stared at the bonfire. She'd hated her magic, then. _Fenris_ had hated her magic. But in the end she thought she'd accepted it – he'd accepted it - she'd made a _staff_ – and through that fight, the decision was made. The Champion's choice wasn't to fight for herself, in the end, it was to protect someone else…

 _That innocent herbalist in Forthing, and the sound his skull made against the stone._

"Those who have none," said the Champion of Kirkwall quietly.

"A noble rebel." Fastus startled her with his laugh; it was quiet, old, and bitter, filled with the tiredness of a man whose hermetic wit would entertain no-one else. "Or, as the Dalish would say, _harellan._ "

She looked at him without understanding. "Not all of us get the joke."

Fastus flashed a crooked half-smile – as much of an explanation as he would offer on the issue, Aedale correctly interpreted. "The spirit of Faith planted the fire back around your heart, knowing that you were going to need it," he continued, skilfully draining the hare meat from blood, wrapping it with some elfroot leaves procured out of his poach, and sending it to levitate casually over the flame. Aedale raised a brow. It was either showing off, or the elf was so used to magic being a part of his daily routine that it didn't even cross his mind to make an oven. "You were healing. And then…"

She remembered how she'd almost lost control in the Vigil's Keep, and how Wynne'd taken it away – _you'll kill yourself if you do that, Champion…_

"And then I set fire to the Chantry building and ran," finished Aedale.

Now it was his turn to raise a brow at her. "Pardon?"

"I made my choice, Fastus."

"Your choice was to… debase your god's temple with fire and smoke," said the elf slowly. The same hermetic smile started blossoming on his lips.

"No. That was for revenge. My choice was to leave a sign that I will _not_ take the Chantry's side in the war to come."

Fastus laughed again. "What's your stance on the issue of _time,_ Champion?"

The question caught her off guard. "My stance on time? Preferably a distant one. Why?"

"Some scholars would say that time is circular," he said, falling back into a contemplative, academic tone. "That history follows its axis in circles, unchanged, and all that was will then be again. Would you agree?"

The paintings in the shack, with the thin, blue, glimmering line of singularity spanning across the four walls…

"I think _you think_ that the cycle's broken," she said quietly. His eyes lost focus, staring at something beyond her.

"Yes," he said, and it was the last word he said that night.

Long after nightfall, when it became obvious that he would not move nor make a sound, Aedale took the still-levitating meat from the fire, ate a surprisingly flavourful piece of hot hare meat in the elfroot leaves, and got back to the hut. After a short moment of hesitation, she went back and dropped a rug on his unmoving shoulders.

The night was quiet.

-/-

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I like the parallels between Hawke's and, ahem, _Fastus'_ story: the world blown up for the sake of collective freedom of the subjugated, and the relentless striving to make up for the mistake. Heck, even the notion of _freeing the slaves_ is there. In a way, Fastus is a champion of the People (the elves) similarly as Hawke has chosen to be the Champion of the mages.

I think the similarities aren't lost on him, and that they amuse him quite a lot.


	19. Steps forward

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 3: Steps forward**

When she woke up, she was relieved to see that it was at the same place she'd fallen asleep. _Little victories, Hawke._ The sun was shining through the hut's window; in the middle of the room, the rug had been carefully re-positioned back at it original spot, but the hermit wasn't sitting on it.

She found him kneeling at the stream, a razor moving efficiently around his jaw and glistening pale scalp. _Not age then. Choice._ It seemed strangely intimate and domestic to watch him like that; she turned back, meaning to go away, but he called after her.

"Watch the water," he said, as if it explained everything.

"Good morning to you too, Fastus."

The look he gave her was an artisan expression of pure annoyance. "Good morning," he said acidly. "Would you like to comment on the weather? It is indeed good for this time of year. I'm sure you've slept well, I have also had a satisfactory rest. Now watch the water."

Hawke rolled her eyes, but obediently slipped to her knees at his side and started staring at the clear shimmering stream.

A long moment passed, marked only by the quiet scraping of the razor.

"I'm not seeing anything."

The irritated sound he made under his breath was suspiciously close to some of Isabela's more colourful curses, only in some strange foreign tongue. It wasn't Elvhen either; if she were to guess, it sounded like ancient, disfigured Tevene.

 _Just how old is he exactly?_

"You can see the _water,_ " he said after a couple of long calming breaths. Hawke shrugged.

"But nothing's in it. It's just about the clearest creek I've seen for a while."

Pause. But this time a thoughtful one, as if the elf had noticed the problem.

"What did you use to meditate with?"

"Fireplace, usually. Or a candle…" _Oh,_ she thought, and suddenly his request sounded more sane. "You want me to watch _water._ "

He shot her a long look, leaving the obvious repartee hanging. Hawke pinked slightly and turned her gaze to the creak.

It was a clear, glimmering line, reflecting and splitting light like liquid diamond. _I like the thought,_ she mused dreamily, feeling her freshly-awake mind relax. The pebbles at the bottom of the stream looked slick and oval, like a fine set of jewellery beads… Taken by a passing fancy to grab one of them for herself, she dipped her finger in the water – and grimaced, feeling the cold shoot through her bones.

"Warm it up," sounded Fastus' calm voice.

"How?"

"Tell it to."

 _Okay,_ Hawke thought, gritting her teeth and dipping her hand lower in the icy water. _It's just a change of energies, right? There needs to be… more here… just a little bit…_ Something cracked around her hand and she withdrew it hastily, swearing. A red burning mark appeared on her skin, and the water was just as icy.

"This is the fire's way," said Fastus. "This is how you would do it with fire in your core, a flash, shift and immediate change. Open your mind, Champion. _Feel_ that emptiness in you that yearns to be filled, and let the water enter it, assume its shape. Let it flow…" His eyes closed and he made a slow, languid, curvy gesture. A small pillar of clear water rose up from the stream; blossoming like a flower, it rose up and opened with a perfectly round orb. Ice crept up the pillar in gorgeously complex trails of frost; Fastus' finger bent leisurely and suddenly the water-orb started boiling furiously against the ice, shrinking and vaporising in seconds.

Aedale stared at him. Then she nuzzled her burned palm against the pillar's ice.

"Nice trick. So you're water too?"

"No, but I spent many years adapting to the elements until they all felt like the warmth around my heart," said Fastus. Aedale looked at him, equally surprised by his sincerity, and by the way heturned her own confession back at her.

 _Oh, what the hell._ "How old are you, Fastus?"

"Old enough for it to warrant a name _hahren,_ " he said, not exactly an answer, but not a brushoff either. _Hahren,_ she remembered, that's how she'd called him: the elder. She wondered why he left the Dalish, why he lived alone, why, despite a rough hermit's façade, he seemed so infinitely more sophisticated.

"How old are _you_ , Hawke?"

It was the first time he spoke her name – not the name-surname nonsense she reserved for nobility, not the _Champion_ title, but her actual _name._ She considered replying in an oblique way to match his own answer, but there was nothing hidden or mysterious about her age. "Twenty-seven."

He laughed.

And something in that laughter reminded her of Fenris' amusement, ages, ages ago, when they'd been chatting over wine… _how old are you, Hawke? Twenty. You're too young. – You don't get to pull the 'too young' card on me if you don't even know in what year you were born, Fenris. – You grow old quickly on the run._

 _Tell me about it,_ she'd said, the child of an apostate mage, and the Blight refugee.

Fenris had stilled, then. She always thought that had been the time when he'd actually started considering her an equal.

The grief opened in her mind like an endless black well. _He's not coming back. And this is how this is going to feel like, forever. At every memory. At every reminder of him…_

It was rising. The black, sickly flame of absolute _desperation –_ and that terrifying need to do something, break something, _burn something –_

" _Flow,_ Hawke," whispered Fastus, suddenly so close he was looming over her. "You're no fire. You can't win this with fire. Learn the water, crash with the water. Let it trash with the storm and then let it calm…"

… and she didn't know whether it was his intent, confident voice that soothed her panic attack, whether she imagined the distant sound of the crashing gales, or she didn't.

She breathed out.

Fastus dropped back to his knees, back perfectly straight, hands neatly folded on his lap.

"You will improve, time permitting," he said. "I expect you to master heating water in your own time." With these words, he closed his eyes and slowed his breathing until it was barely there; Aedale recognised the signs. As she was walking back to the hut alone, one thought crossed her mind:

 _Did he just give me homework?_

-/-

Isabela had yelled, cursed, and thrown her daggers across the room where they cut through the wood, vibrating. Now she was just sitting there, her tanned face crossed with an impassive grimace.

Varric was writing.

 _The Magnificent and Unbyelivable Tale of the Champion of Kirkwall, in Three Acts, by the Her Faithful Fryend and Companyon, Esteemed Master of the Merchants' Guild in Kirkwall Varric Eugene Tethras…_

The manuscript was gaining weight quickly.

" _Varric-_ "

"Yes," he said, without turning his head.

A passing smirk crossed Isabela's frown. "Thanks, mate. I'm just going to take all your gold and go now, since you're so easy with it."

"Leave me Bianca and we're good."

"As if I wanted that monster of a crossbow." She snorted. That elicited a reaction, although not as much as she'd expected; Varric's hand shot up, showing her the universal "fuck off" gesture, and flew back down to hold the paper.

Isabela stared at him for a while.

"You okay?"

"No," he said curtly. "What a shit question to ask, Rivaini."

"Me neither." She walked up to his desk, reading over his shoulder. The dwarf hunched lower over the manuscript, but she simply followed suit. "What are you going to do when you finish this?"

He shrugged. "Publish it. Get it circulating. Get millions in royalties. The usual."

"No, what are you going to _do-_ " Isabela stopped and shook her head, realising that the dwarf had been very well aware of what she meant to ask. "We're repairing the ship," she said instead. "We'll be stuck in Amaranthine for a while, but there are worse places to start. Lads want to rename her 'Champion's Pride'."

"Risky choice these days," commented Varric impassively.

"Wanna come with?"

The dwarf put down the quill and looked at her for the first time. "No offence, Rivaini, but I'm really not that much of a sea fan. I'll leave you to all that rocking."

Isabela's fists clenched out of their own volition. "So that's it, huh? Aveline in Kirkwall, Kitten fuck-knows-where with her elves and blood magic, Fenris dead, Anders just as well as dead, and you and I just say goodbye here? _This_ is what this entire Hawke deal brought me in the end?"

Varric smiled bitterly. "Hey, it could be worse, you know."

" _How?_ "

"We could _all_ be dead."

"I'm just so pissed she just left us there!" exclaimed Isabela. "Without even a goodbye-"

"Remember how we walked off the ship in Forthing?" interrupted her Varric. " _That_ was goodbye. As much as we could possibly want from her, Rivaini."

"Well, this sucks."

"Tell me about it." He sighed. "As much as I know Hawke, she'll resurface sooner or later. In the meantime, we can do what she's been doing, and try to make that miserable hole a bit better place. That's the least we owe her."

"She disappeared on us, Varric!"

"For fuck's sake, _Isabela!_ " He slammed his fist into the table. "Why are the people around her so bloody selfish? First the elf, now you… Are you really that blind to see that this is exactly what _you_ did to her?! She put up with _us_ all those years."

Isabella stilled, a mixture of anger and shame twisting her face. Something inside her seemed to be battling – helpless frustration against the memory of the Arishok.

Finally she let out a long, shaky breath.

"It doesn't make it any fucking easier."

"No, it doesn't," agreed Varric. "But at the very least it makes it more fair."

"So what now?" asked Isabela after a long silent moment, when the dwarf had turned back and returned to his tireless scribbling. "What _will_ you do now?"

"Well, _she_ wanted to go to Jainen," he said. "I'm sure I've got some business there that needs urgent oversight."

Isabella nodded absent-mindedly and walked to the door, stopping only to pull her daggers out of the wall. "Well, we're still in the city for a while. You know where to find us." As she was about to walk out of the room, she turned back hesitantly. "Varric?"

"Yeah?"

"Good times."

"Yeah." The dwarf sighed, and then a smile crossed his crooked features. "I'll write to you, Rivaini."

"You'd better." Isabela flashed her signature grin, toothy and roughish, and walked out of the room, her hips swaying gracelessly.

-/-

The quiet rustle of a raven's wings in the night…

Nathaniel raised his head from the desk. Had he… yes. He'd slept here, in the Queen's empty office, the winged crown carefully tucked away in the drawer. There must have been red marks on his forehead, where the parchment imprinted against his skin… He had been so tired.

He undid the knot on the raven's leg and unwrapped the message with wooden fingers. The creature cawed, black beady eyes staring into him intelligently.

 _Warden-Captain, I hope this finds you in good health…_ blah, blah, blah… _As the word was passed to the patrols along the Wounded Coast, the mabari have succeeded in finding the Champion's trail. It is as singular as one might expect from a Fade-stepping mage, starting in the cave, leading out, and then ending abruptly._ Of course. Of course Hawke would not take any chances. He'd read the note that Wynne had left for Claire – after having shamefully lost a long inner battle – and he knew that the Champion of Kirkwall had denounced the Chantry. The war was coming… - _Instead of the Champion, in the cave we have discovered an unlikely finding in the shape of red-coloured raw lyrium. If there is a correlation, we do now know it. I recommend the Wardens take care of it immediately…_

Red, raw lyrium.

"Adam!" Nathaniel called from his desk. Nothing answered him, save another caw from the raven; then he realised that his aide was most likely in the barracks, _sleeping._

Of course…

He took a quill himself.

 _My Commander,_ with the shameful _my_ always catching in his throat like an indecent curse, _I am aware that there are matters more pressing for your attention in this moment in time. However, I implore you to read this account carefully…_

In less than half an hour, the raven flew off the tower again; and it became a speck of the starless emptiness against the silvery night sky.

-/-

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** With the parting of Varric and Isabela, Hawke's little merry band of misfits is ultimately split apart. Heartbreaking as it is, I think it was inevitable.

Canon-wise, this is before Corypheus got the orb, somewhere around the timeline of Asunder – the College of Enchanters makes their decision and the war escalates, but still at the stage where Fastus (huehuehue) is only recently woken up and still all weak and foggy-eyed.


	20. The Wolf's Awakening

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 4: The Wolf's Awakening**

 **Chapter 4: The Wolf's Awakening**

_Seheron._

Fenris recognised it immediately. There was nothing else in Thedas so hot and green, as if the very earth was breathing out its life through the colours. The jungle was _alive_ in a way no southern forest was, its singing, cawing and rustling creating an utter cacophony with the sound of the crashing tides behind him. And he was decidedly, definitely alone.

"Hawke?" he called into the wilderness.

Was it magic? Did he miss it? _What happened?_ The last thing he could remember was closing his fist on Hawke's staff in the choking thick smoke - and then the board crashed over his head…

It could still be the Fade… right now he would choose the Fade.

Or he could be dead – but no, no, he rejected the thought immediately, not for the white horror that sparked in his mind at the image of _what would she do –_ but the charred wood of the staff in his hand was harsh and grounding, and the humidity in the air all too choking to be unreal. He wasn't dead.

But he was in Seheron, which meant it was still an open possibility.

He stood up, wincing as his muscles ached from disuse. His stomach growled. _How long was I unconscious?_

"Hawke!" he called louder, starting a long, torturous walk along the jungle's cliffs. She had to be somewhere around – with answers and explanations. She was _abysmal_ with hiding and quiet moving around, and for once it could be an advantage. He just needed to find a trace… He'd found her in worse situations.

 _The darkness of the caves, the steady wet noise of the water dripping from the stalactites over the lake black as ink…_

He blinked away the memories. 

_I will find you. Anywhere, even in the belly of the earth, I will find you._

The torched staff in hand, he walked into the thick, moist, tangled greenery of the jungle.

The reasons why, after all these years, Seheron remained unconquered were numerous; not the smallest of them the fact that there were not two, but _four_ forces constantly fighting for domination over the small stubborn piece of land, two of them being powerful expansionist states. Positioned in between the Qunari territories and the northernmost edge of the Tevinter Imperium, the island was a constant thorn in the side of both – each side keenly aware that if the other takes an established foothold in Seheron, the full invasion would be a matter of time. Now, the war continued simply because the war had always been there, and because even though neither side couldn't manage to win, neither could afford withdrawing. Caught in the perpetual stalemate, the island was hell for stationing an army, and even more of a hell for its soldiers – with the hot, tempestuous weather that drenched and exhausted any sentient being to insanity, and the angrily _alive,_ bustling jungle swallowing patrols whole, Seheron itself refused to be conquered.

Decades of constant, deadly military struggle forged the people of Seheron into something made of stone. Massacred, decimated, and systemically eradicated like vermin by both armies, they changed into the creatures of pure survival. Little was known about the Fog Warriors in the continents; they made themselves into ghosts, everything else hidden by the fog in which they arrived, fought, and vanished. They were fierce, and they were skilled, and they held onto their stormy land with boundless passion and stubbornness – and they had never been driven away.

And there were, of course, the Tal-Vashoth.

He walked right into an ambush. He should have realised – he _would_ have realised, he thought with unbearable clarity as he saw the brute horned men stand up from the low tangles of bushes, if he hadn't gone soft and distracted by the things that once were. One Tal-Vashoth. Two. Five…

He stood motionless, watching them come closer. The right thing to do was cower, look frightened, urge them to come closer so he could phase through their chests and brains; but the years of freedom stiffened his knees. He would not make a show of weakness in front on an enemy.

He was unexpected – one man, alone in the jungle, dressed neither like a soldier nor a Viddathari. And so he could be one thing…

" _Kataraad,"_ yelled the tallest Tal-Vashoth, and Fenris relaxed his muscles, standing perfectly still. He loosened the grip on the rod… _A White Death,_ the enemy told him. They took him for a Fog Warrior.

A spark of pride lit up in his gut at the thought as they charged at him. He will kill the enemies in their name.

The Tal-Vashoth were gigantic, tall and broad-shouldered, much taller and broader than him. But they were also morbidly thin under the muscle, and there was _asala-taar,_ the sickness of Seheron, in their eyes. This island broke people… he dodged the first blow with ease, blocked the second one with the staff, and lit up the lyrium – there was a moist, stomach-turning squelch and he ripped the warrior's heart out and threw it in the tall trampled grass. A terrible scream shot through the air –

The fog came silently, untouchable and deadly, and a dam of memories broke, threatening to drown Fenris in their flood. He closed his eyes on an instinct, listening to the breaths, hearing the slow, careful pattern of the Warrior's approach… _he'd fought with them like that, a long, long time ago, before he lost the right._ He could smell the not-quite-poison in the air, the thick white smoke that penetrated his lungs with every breath, just barely more choking than the very air of Seheron… He moved and swung the rod on an instinct, and he heard the Tal-Vashoth yell incomprehensibly. His markings flared up so brightly that the silver flight pierced the fog and his closed eyelids – there was another scream, and then sound of a body hitting the ground.

He heard other voices cry out, only to be silenced with a quiet gargle. The ambush failed.

And the fog disappeared as quickly as it came, unravelling to uncover five bodies of bloodied Tal-Vashoth on the grass – and five white spectres standing over them. He felt his heart sink as their impassive glances tore a hole through ten years of his life and brought him back… to that one quiet afternoon when a slave killed the people that showed him kindness.

The lyrium shone through his skin.

"White Wolf," said one of the spectres, her voice tight but unwavering, "you're back."

-/-

Hawke sat at the side of the stream, her eyes firmly closed. Her breath had slowed down. At every languid inhale a small circular wave crossed the water; at every exhale it disappeared. The pale moonlight reflected in the water, lighting up the creek at every movement of the water, changing it into a transparent stream of molten silver.

Her mind wandered.

Fastus spoke little about his condition, or whatever caused these frequent relapses into comatose-like meditation; she avoided the subject, intuitively knowing that it would only cause the elf to become more guarded. It seemed like every second he was not meditating – or whatever that state was – he was straining himself greatly; his waking hours were few and far between, and even though he was meticulously hiding his weariness, she quickly learnt to recognise how tired he grew whilst awake.

He made true of his promise – in the time when he _was_ awake, he did teach her, impatient and sour at times, and surprisingly compassionate in others. She stopped wondering whether there was any pattern to this, and whether she was meant to try and decipher the enigmatic allusions and bitter smiles that he kept flashing. Somehow, she felt, it was connected to the broken blue line in the paintings around the hut; all he did and all he spoke about was bound by a great tragedy, some terrible unspoken regret.

She wondered if it were the wolf that had crippled him.

He was still powerful; both his magic and his knowledge went beyond what Hawke thought were their limits, with unquestionable experience sharpening them both. _If this is what the Dalish really have to offer, perhaps the time of humans is coming to an end._ But he himself seemed almost brittle; and she wondered whether against his name – _pride –_ he decided to take her in because he simply could not manage on his own.

 _Who have you lost? - Everyone. - So have I. Sit with me._

Hawke opened her eyes slowly, her vision crystallising on the silver moonlit water. She took a long, slow, measured breath and dipped her hand into the icy stream.

 _I am not the fire of change. I am the pebble that will start it, a ripple in the stream that will start a tide if I wish it to._

The water shimmered and gleamed in the silver light – and then, ever so slowly that for a cold second she thought she was imagining it, the icy stream warmed up around her palm. Hawke felt a barbaric joy that started as a deep shiver at the base of her spine – _she was learning magic, all new, all by herself,_ and it was just as exhilarating as for the first time when she had lit the tablecloth on fire.

 _All fresh. All new._

 _Would you be proud of me, Fenris?_

She imagined his face in the water, a dark ashen-coloured skin, thin lips marked with two white lines of lyrium on his chin, soft white hair covering his eyes until he'd huff with just the slightest annoyance at the world and tuck the stray strands back behind his pointed ears… _it hurts, it hurts, it hurts._ He was dead, and he was dead because he'd listened to her. And that last conversation they had, a stupid, pointless spat about mages…

The water flowed, endless and ever-changing as the moon.

" _Me paenitet,_ " she said softly to the stream. Tevene, _his_ language – he was the one to teach it to her, in exchange for reading and writing. She hadn't needed it then, but any time spent with him had been a treasure, back when he still carried his shoulders stiff and spiky and when there was a perpetual shadow of a fugitive in his eyes… Taking without giving was wrong, it was shameful – so he only agreed to be taught by her when she agreed to be taught by him. " _Me paenitet. Me paenitet. Me paenitent…_ "

The world has shrunk to these two simple words – _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry –_ and as the moon moved away from the stream and the light dimmed, a realisation hit with strange, powerful clarity: tears were water too.

She sat at the side of the darkened stream for a while, listening to its quiet shimmer, and then carefully wiped her face and went back to the hut.

-/-

When she entered, Fastus was laying gracelessly on the rug, shivering. Hawke immediately got to his side.

"Fastus! Fastus, you okay?"

A string of half-pronounced Elvhen words poured from his mouth, and Hawke felt the hair on her neck stand on ends. He couldn't see her – and he was in pain. She raised an unsure hand, _who knew how many taboos about touching elves have, not even mentioning the dirty humans in the equation,_ but after a long tense second she cursed it all to the Void and grabbed his shoulders forcefully.

"Fastus. Fastus, wake up. What's wrong?"

His muscles were taut and wiry under her fingers – but on the top of them, his skin seemed paper-thin and unhealthily cold. His bald head bobbed unconsciously as she shook him.

"Fastus!"

His eyes opened just slightly. " _Da'len,_ " he whispered throatily, his gaze unfocused and hazy. " _Ar… lasa… mala… revas…_ "

"I'm not elven, I don't understand! I'm Hawke, Fastus, remember me? Hawke. Your… apprentice for the moment, I guess. I'm trying to help you! How can I help you? What's wrong with you?" She shook his shoulders one more time, and he shuddered so violently that she felt the aftershocks.

" _Uthenera,_ " he let out a half-bitten word.

" _What?_ "

Something in her tone must have gotten back to him through the thick veil of nightmares, because the next words he spat were a string of curses.

Hawke strengthened her grasp on his shoulders. "Yes, it's totally my fault I don't understand your fancy Dalish mysticism. _Sorry._ "

" _Fenedhis lasa, shemlen._ "

"Oh, I know what that means. Not a nice thing to say to someone who's trying to help you."

His fists closed on her forearms, digging his nails into her skin. "Hawke," he spoke suddenly in a soft, almost pleading voice, but the underlying tremor betraying that he was not fully conscious. " _Ghilan'al Mythal_. _Halani, falon…tu then ma…_ "

 _Falon._ Friend. Merrill had taught her that. "I am your friend, Fastus. Let me help you. _How_ can I help you?"

" _Mythal… Mythal…_ " His words slowly started blurring into each other as he slumped lifelessly into her arms. Aedale swore loudly and reached out for his pulse; to her endless relief, it was there, but slow beyond any rational possibility.

She put him down on the rug carefully. After a moment of hesitation, she took the pouch with which he never parted from his belt and looked inside.

It was filled with herbs. Outside from that, all seemed innocent enough: a sharp razor, prayer beads, a little book written in old-looking Elvish, and a black-greenish geode that seemed to be sealed with some unknown magic – enchantment, perhaps. And there was also a little glass bottle with something sticky and golden which, after closer inspection, turned out to be spiced honey.

She hesitated. _Oh, what the hell. It's not like it'd hurt him. And it's technically a medicine. Why else would he carry it with him?_ She tried a little bit of the honey herself, and after it turned out to be indeed what it seemed, she poured a couple of thick, sticky drops into his mouth.

For a long while, nothing happened.

Hawke sat at his side, feeling very hopeless – and slightly silly.

And then Fastus started coughing – a wonderfully alive sound. She pulled him up into a sitting position and to her surprise, he obeyed; the cough subsided after a short while, leaving his breathing quick and shallow. After a moment even that slowed down.

"Fastus," she said gently.

"You know nothing of Mythal," he said roughly, his voice still throaty and hoarse. He pulled himself up into his normal cross-legged position, straightening his back like a point of pride.

Aedale blinked. "I'm inclined to agree with you on that one."

His face seemed to fall noticeably. "But why did she… _where is she,_ then?" It wasn't a question directed at her, so Hawke kept silent; and finally, after a long moment, to her surprise she saw him hide his face in palms.

"I'm sorry, Fastus."

"It's not my name," he said coarsely.

"You said names are irrelevant."

"I lied, Hawke. You would do well to learn that I do that in abundance." There was an ageless bitterness in his voice, something that – again – brought into her thoughts the howling wolf, biting through the shining blue line…

"What's wrong with you? I mean seriously. I can't just pretend forever that I'm not seeing it. I don't know who Mythal is, I'm not your… da'len or whatever, and I have no idea how that elven coma works, but…" She stuttered. "You said you'd help me. Can't I at least _try_ to be even?"

 _Reading and writing in exchange for Tevene. Because it's shameful to take without giving._

She looked at him. And when he looked back at her, lowering his hands, her breath caught in her throat; there was nothing human in these eyes, a disguise suddenly lifted to reveal something endless like shine of a comet on an empty starless sky, immortal, infinitely powerful, and infinitely… lonely.

The moment passed just as quickly as it appeared.

She made a decision.

"My name is Aedale Hawke," she said, watching him intently. "I used to be a daughter, a sister, and a lover, but now I am neither. I'm a refugee of the Fifth Blight and the killer of the Arishok, hunted for aiding my friend in blowing up the Chantry and the world. My last love died in flames as a consequence of my command. Eight years ago, a dragon cleared the path for me and changed into a woman before my eyes, giving me a necklace to bring to the top of Sundermount, and a command to forge my own destiny." She extended her hand hesitantly. "Champion of Kirkwall. Pleasure. And you?"

The elf glanced at her for a long moment. Then, to her surprise and perhaps his own, his hand closed over hers, squeezing once, hard.

"My name is Solas."

 **-/-**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** OH EVERYBODY IS SO SURPRISED OH MY MAKER WHAT A TWIST. Seriously, though. Anyone who didn't get that before that point?

Also, Hawke might have just disregarded the Orb of Destruction as a harmless enchantment. Way to go, girl.


	21. Reclaiming

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 5: Reclaiming**

 **Chapter 5: Reclaiming**

The jungle was as familiar as he could remember it, and following the Fog Warriors' silent, winding traverse across the wilds, Fenris could feel his heart swell with uncertainty and guilt in equal measures. He hadn't forgotten his first free memories. They were his, much more so than the old, disjointed story of Leto. And they were marred by the slave's obedience to an order.

 _I killed them all._

But they were around him again, faces and arms painted white.

They stopped at a seemingly random grove, and the woman walking behind him issued a quiet order. A Warrior combed the foliage, revealing a gaping chasm on the other side – a shocking _hole_ in the fabric of the forest, as if the earth itself had been scarred there by a claw of an unimaginably gigantic creature. When he dared look inside it, he could almost see the distant glimmering metal rubble of the Deep Roads… And the chasm was new, the soil at the sides of it still visible and not yet covered by endlessly ravenous jungle of Seheron.

Someone clasped their arms around him and he _froze_ – but before he had any chance to react they were falling, falling, falling, the wind wheezing past his ears and pushing the scream back into his throat, they flew into the roaring abyss –

And then he landed.

He rolled to his knees, coughing, squeezing Hawke's staff until it hurt. His stomach was clenching and spasming violently, but there was nothing he could vomit with. Someone helped him up without a word – not gently, but not brutally either.

Propping himself up against the staff, Fenris stood up and looked around.

The camp of the Fog Warriors was never a permanent thing, similar to the Dalish aravels – always ready to fight and flee, disappearing in the white smoke. But this one, positioned at the belly of an old black cave under the forest, was as _settled_ as Fenris had ever seen it: there were open campfires, white tents that looked like they hadn't moved for a long time, and even carved and woven children's toys scattered around each set of tents. The basalt walls had been decorated with clear white paint; he could not read the complex symbols that ran around the bottom of the cave, but the visual story was easy enough.

Seheron against Tevinter. Seheron against the Qunari. Nahar cursing the island with the anathema of eternal fog, and the Marchers of Four Winds changing the curse into a blessing: a veil in the air to hide, to protect, to give power. The fog dancers driving away the magisters, drowning the Arishoks in smoke.

From the entrance he could see the other Warriors slide down on lianas, jumping down easily as if it was just as simple as opening and closing a gate.

"White Wolf." The woman that had addressed him before stood behind him, and he turned sharply. She spoke in heavily accented Tevene, in the native dialect of Seheron. "Why did you come back? You will tell me before I speak with the dancers."

There was no anger in her voice, but rather a very defined will without even considering disobedience. Fenris felt hot in his chest. And so he was back, and suddenly he was ten years younger and still freshly a slave –

Hadriana. _Little Wolf. What did you do this time? It's like you_ enjoy _being punished…_

He slipped to his knees without even realising. A part of himself filled with white-hot rage at it, but _the world was back to what it had been and there was one thing for him to do, only one._ "Domina. I beg your forgiveness."

A sharp intake of breath. "Get _up._ Immediately."

Fenris shuddered as if a jolt went through him. _That's what Hawke would say. That's what she did say._

 _I'm not a slave. I'm not a slave, and Hadriana's dead, and this is not Tevinter._

He stood up and – although it was immeasurably difficult – looked her in the eye. She was not older than twenty, tall and scrawny, and under her white paint her skin looked ashen-grey like his own. And _now_ there was anger curling her features, but it somehow wasn't directed at him. "I will not have you kneel before me like you kneeled before my father, White Wolf. We taught you freedom once. Have you forgotten?"

And through the paint and the half-dimmed light of the cave and ten years' worth of change, he saw her.

"Asha."

"Fenris."

Hyruna's daughter. Once, she'd cut his hair, and tug at his shoulder long enough to make him slip away from the tent – he'd been terrified because he had not asked Hyruna's permission, and when he'd finally articulated it, she'd laughed like he was the silliest man in the jungle – and pick sweet berries with her. She'd been no older than ten, and he'd been a slave.

And then he'd killed her father.

She closed the distance between them. "Why did you come back?" There was no accusation in her voice, no anger now, only a simple command, and _he did not understand._

"I don't know. I'm looking for the Champion of Kirkwall." The next words ran out of his mouth almost against his will, he was helpless to stop them. "I thought I'd killed you, Asha. I thought I killed all of the tribe. I beg your-"

She interrupted him, unfazed. "Later, White Wolf. I must speak to the fog dancers first. What would the Champion of Kirkwall do in _Seheron?_ "

He suddenly felt completely exhausted. The torched staff felt heavy and hot with power in his hands.

"We were in Amaranthine. I don't know how I found myself here. I lost trail of her." _After all this time_ , he thought bitterly, _you could really get used to holes in memory._

"We know of Kirkwall," said Asha. "And we did hear stories about the lyrium warrior at the Champion's side. I hoped…" Something glistened on her face, and she shrugged it off immediately. "Is he dead? Your master?"

"I killed him."

And her expression suddenly opened, relaxed into something akin to relief and – something wrenched in his gut, _he killed her father and she still smiled at him._

"That's good."

He gave a sharp nod, not trusting his expression. Asha looked at him for a short moment, eyes lit up.

"So you've come to stay?"

The barely hidden hope in her voice gave him pause. "Would you have me?"

"Let me speak to the dancers." But her glance was bright and open, the mask of the leader discarded and forgotten. She raised her hand and for a split second he thought she was going to touch his face – but instead she just tugged at the white strand of hair at his ear. "You always let it grow out too long."

He stared at her back as she walked away from him, disappearing in the belly of the cave.

It didn't make _sense._

He was a murderer. A backstabber. A traitor. He killed the first people that'd shown him kindness.

 _Would they have him? Would they?_

-/- 

She'd left him free to wander the camp. He took the opportunity to walk amongst the tents, brushing off the dust from the old, shameful memories. The white linings on the black cave walls told the stories that he remembered hearing around a bonfire: the fog dancer Erina and the Orchid spirit; the griffins that had lifted Seheron from the bottom of the stormy sea; the warrior that saddled the Tempest Cloud to battle and wielded the Lightning as a sword. Something coiled around his heart, a warmth and impossible hope that he just _knew_ was going to be wrenched out from between his fingers if he dared take it – _would they let him come back?_ He heard laughter bellowing from the tents, and his lip twitched on its own. _Fierce. Proud. Loving, and open, and so very free._

"White Wolf," called Asha from behind him. "They will see you."

He followed her inside the cave, blinking to readjust his eyes to the dimmed lights. The markings on the walls changed here; they were more abstract, more mystic, weaving along the stone like mist. _The March of the Four Winds…_ and the promise that once day, on a day where there is nothing more to hide and run away from, the fogs of Seheron will be lifted.

Whereas the outermost part of the cave looked eroded and natural, the inside looked more and more like a Deep Roads exit corridor.

Four fog dancers sat around the tall white bonfire.

"Have you come here out of your own volition, White Wolf?"

"My master is dead. I am unbound." He stood straight in front of them, looking at their silver hair and ashen skin, so similar to his own, and a wave of strange pride washed through him. He'd killed as a slave, but he would bear the responsibility as a free man.

As it should be.

"Did you come to help?"

That was the last thing he'd expected. _Help? Help with what?_ He lowered his head.

"I came into Seheron unwittingly, wise dancers. But I would help with anything the Fog Warriors ask."

"So we heard." The elders started murmuring quietly amongst each other. Finally, the tallest one sat up straight.

"Since the chasm opened, the Warriors have been enjoying peace in our hiding place. But alas, we've learnt that this is not the only structure that have been unearthed on Seheron. In exploration of the caves, our men wandered out into the territories of the Qunari and have been captured." There was an impassivity in the face of the old man, a face that saw too much death to be fazed by it anymore. "We need to retrace their steps and make sure that the Qunari, or the Tevinter, do _not_ find us from beneath as we sleep."

He bowed. "I would be honoured to aid the tribe."

"In exchange, we will help you find the Champion."

He looked up to them, surprised. His debt would only begin to be repaid with the cave exploration – and here they added more to it.

He nodded mutely and bowed again, more deeply. "I thank you for your generosity, wise dancers."

"He speaks to us as if we're his masters," Asha said from behind his back, and he felt the humiliation like a slap. "He's not a slave anymore. My father's murder has been avenged. Why do you let him cower in front of you? Fog Warriors don't bow to anyone!"

Murmurs. He didn't hear it over the pounding in his ears.

"Your father's-"

" _My father's murderer is dead,_ Fenris. And you walk free."

 _No, no, no, no._ She was wrestling the responsibility from him. But it was his. It was his to claim, the first act of a free man.

"I killed your entire tribe, Asha!"

"Not the entire tribe." She stood before him, tall and proud and unyielding, and he was at a loss. "You were a tool of murder. A way of Tevinter to destroy us. But who would blame a sword if the man is dead?"

" _I'm not a-_ " Something boiled inside of him, a guilt cradled so long that it had become a part of him, the first act of a free man, and now it was being taken away. Somehow in the act of shifting the blame she was denying his very humanity. "I wasn't a _tool,_ or a _sword,_ Asha, not after here! I was learning how to be free! You _taught_ me how, and I-" He was shaking, the anger flaring up his lyrium so bright it made the fire look dim. "I was a man who had a choice, and I made a wrong one! _Do not deny me my responsibility!_ "

"I'm denying you your guilt, nothing else."

"Let me have it," and he did not know whether he was demanding or pleading. " _I was a free man._ Don't take away the consequences of my choice."

The tall fog dancer cleared his throat in the tense silence that followed.

"Let the dancers solve it, Asha. This is not a tribe's inner matter."

The woman's face twisted in anger.

"Isn't it, dancer? Is he not a warrior? He is from here, you need only look at him to see it. He wore our war paint and fought in our fog, and he shared my father's tent. This man was one of us once, and he was taken away and marred by Tevinter, but now he is returned! Do not disrespect the memory of Hyruna Long Shadow of the Coruscati by treating his tribesman like an _esternus!_ "

The word stung, loaded with anger and disgust at something Fenris couldn't quite understand. _One of us. Taken away and marred by Tevinter, but one of us-_

Something shifted inside his scarred soul.

"Asha," he said, more slowly than he intended. "You can't claim me a free man and deny my crime with the same breath."

"Can't I? Just you watch me." The snap was so much _Hawke,_ complete with the scowl and angry eyes, that he could laugh out loud over his own frustration. "You had a master then. You do not anymore. And you're a Coruscati, you're _of my tribe._ "

Fenris did not miss the way the fog dancers looked at each other. Something wordless passed between them, and the tallest one – the leader? – relented; he straightened up and spoke with the tone that brokered no discussion.

"You'll be sent into the deep tunnels for your penance, White Wolf of the Coruscati. You won't do it to please the fog dancers or the tribe. You won't do it as an outsider trading the help. You will do it as one of us, as someone who has wronged his tribe and who will lay his life in offering for the ones he took. You will do it as a free man, and by your penance you shall reclaim your right to be called a Fog Warrior."

Fenris stared at him wordlessly. His head spun at the sudden gravity of the decision put on his shoulders. Of all the years with no identity and no allegiance but to Hawke herself, the titles seemed like something that he could not, dared not bear: _a Seheron. A Fog Warrior. A Coruscati._

"And when we look for the Champion, we won't do it in exchange, but as a task shared between the tribe for one of our own."

 _One of our own._ "Thank you," he said in a hollow voice. He closed his eyes and propped his weight against Hawke's staff. He will be absolved. He will be forgiven. He will bear the responsibility and he will be cleared from it.

He'll be cleared. And he will reclaim what he could have been.

 _Now I understand, Hawke._

He felt a stab of longing for her – the woman that drew the slavers away, fought his battles, taught him the ways of a scholar, and shared with him the open, fierce, unyielding nature of someone who could never be bound, not even by guilt. She had grown out of Ferelden like a stubborn thorny thistle, and she carried her country in her thorns just as sure as she carried the magic; she knew the value of roots. He wished she could see him now.

 _Would you be proud of me, Hawke?_

The staff crackled in his hand and he felt the fiery aura shift under his touch. _Yes,_ said the fire that ignited his lyrium. _Yes, she would._

Where _was_ she?

-/-

The Fog Warriors had heard the stories of the White Wolf and the demise of the Coruscati tribe. No-one seemed to loathe him. They knew Tevinter and its magisters; and as much as Fenris was resentful of the way it shifted the blame, he found strange comfort in the fact that _they understood slavery._ But when he explained his mission to the belly of the Deep Roads, as well as the purpose behind it, they nodded thoughtfully – beyond slavery, they understood responsibility. He was relieved.

When they sat together over the fire, the fog dancers joined them – and with a shudder of surprise and familiarity at the same time, he saw that there was no hierarchy between them and the warriors, no boundaries aside from hard-earned respect. The white war paint had been washed off for supper, and it revealed dark hair and ashen skin, their eyes green like his, dark like the earth, or red like the dangerous flowers of Seheron – humans and elves alike, sitting together and no more aware of race than they would be of their different eye colour. They regarded the white lines on his skin as tattoos chosen in pride, and although he had a lifetime of evidence to prove it wrong, there was enough of the hazy _Leto_ in him to remember that they had once been a prize.

Hawke had told him she thought they were beautiful. _Not in that sense,_ she had been quick to add as he turned to her with a half-formed snarl, _they are terrible and a memory of pain and I hate it. But you make them beautiful, Fenris, because they're_ you _now, not Danarius, not nobody, they're your strength and your passion and your own thing, and that's what so damn gorgeous about them._

He hadn't known what to say then, so he'd kissed her.

Asha sat close to him, and without the war paint her face looked so young and so much like that little girl he remembered that his heart clenched painfully, strange warmth coupled with even stranger sense of... _familiarity._ "So you were in Kirkwall that entire time. You fought with the Champion."

"Yes."

"Did you really kill a dragon?"

His lips curled. That was the only thing people ever wanted to know.

"No, we just caught it and tamed it, and then we rode it to the sky against the Arishok."

Asha snorted, but without confidence. "Really?"

"Of course not. The Champion fought the Arishok in a duel. The story must have been clear on that much at least."

"But did you _actually_ tame a dragon?"

He shook his head with a smirk. Asha smacked him – and he supressed a wince. The girl was stronger than he'd realised. _A Fog Warrior now. Of course._

"Liar. And did she actually duel an Arishok? These beasts are _massive._ And they wear this blasted vitaar all over."

"Doesn't matter if you fight from a distance."

"Did she? Hah!" She laughed. "Some duel that was."

"She's a mage, Asha."

"Oh, _kaffas_." She saw her face darken and for a second, he regretted mentioning it. The only magic the people of Seheron knew was the twisted, bloody power of the magisters. "So you just…"

"No!" he snapped at her, and she recoiled. "She's not a Tevinter. She doesn't own slaves, doesn't do blood magic, she's _kind_ despite all that power, Asha, because she used to be a farmer and a fugitive. She arrived to this city a year before I did, just another Fereldan savage with no copper to her name. And then she _changed_ it. And she changed the city around her." _And me._

Silence stretched between them, a ten years' weight of untold stories.

"I'm happy to see you like that," said Asha finally. "I always knew there was more to you than just that shell of fear. But never _ever_ kneel before me again."

He held his head high, the humiliation still hot on his cheeks. "I don't kneel before anyone anymore."

"Good." She watched him intently. "You're my kin, Fenris. My father… he knew that they were searching for you. He'd seen those elven slaves spurred onto us before. And even without your lyrium, he thought you a warrior unlike any other. So of course we expected them to come and take you from us."

She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he tried his best to suppress a wince. "He would never blame you, Fenris. I… I think I understand that you want the right to blame yourself, but I want you to know that neither he nor I would ever blame you. As far as the Fog Warriors are concerned, the murderer of my father and my tribe has been killed by your hand. And you are our flesh and blood, you're of Seheron, and even your tattoos mark you as one of us."

He swallowed the hard lump in his throat. _You're of Seheron. Flesh and blood._

 _So you've come to stay?_

Asha's fingers clenched on his shoulders. He saw the other warriors around the bonfire turn away, giving them at least an illusion of privacy. "You're the last of my tribe, White Wolf. Everything I've got left from my childhood."

"I _killed_ the rest of your tribe."

"Are you deaf, _fatuus?_ You killed the man who did it."

"Asha…" He breathed out. She was frustrating. Not as frustrating as Hawke at times, but still pretty damn frustrating. "I am honoured. But I don't deserve it."

"Yes, you do." Her eyes were unyielding, and for once he could not find the strength to argue.

He would atone for it. He would make things right, and make himself worthy of the titles they so openly gave.

When the night came and the bonfires dimmed, she tugged at his shoulder – just as the little girl would do, years, years ago – and led him to her tent. He sank into the furs without a second thought, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up. She sat at the side and watched him, something soft and relieved smoothening her forehead.

He fell asleep, dreaming the pride in Hawke's eyes.

-/-

Nathaniel decided he rather liked Stroud. He was direct and rough like a blunt weapon, allowed no nonsense, and carried himself with an aura of nobility that was familiar and comforting, if slightly too Orlesian for Nathaniel's liking.

And he was the first one to come and investigate the red lyrium.

Maker only knew what an Orlesian Warden with his patrol had been doing on the Storm Coast, but they had come into contact with their own Amaranthine divisions searching for Hawke, and offered help. And then they'd stumbled onto this: lyrium that sang like the Blight.

"We've never seen something like this. Is the Champion of Kirkwall connected to this thing somehow?" Stroud was observing the shining mineral warily, and Nathaniel was glad; it seemed that he was not the only one hearing the soft whispers at the edge of consciousness that it seemed to emanate.

"It's difficult to say. The reports we've gotten from Kirkwall are unclear, but they indicate that Knight-Commander Meredith carried a weapon fashioned out of similar substance. And then…" He rubbed his temples. He'd spent the rest of the night rereading the Kirkwall reports, but they were just as coherent as the first time: an account of a madman's blubbering. And in the morning he'd just mounted the fastest horse and come here, forehead still stamped with the papers he'd dozed off on... "Let's just say that there is a red statue in the Kirkwall Circle headquarters that has not been there before. The urban legend would have it be the Knight-Commander herself."

Stroud cast him a measured glance. "I wouldn't dismiss the urban legend just yet. There is something mighty strange about this lyrium. _If_ it is lyrium, of course."

"What else could it be? It has the right shape and structure, only that the location and colour are strange. I'll send word to the Circle-" Nathaniel trailed off. The probability of the Circle Templars letting any mage out to the Wardens in this political situation was close to zero. "I'll send the mages from Vigil's Keep here to assess the exact power of that thing. I want the cave manned at all times. Hawke might come back here to have a look."

Stroud nodded sharply and called on his men. Nathaniel listened only half-focused as the command was translated into Orlesian and followed by a brief discussion on watch turns. He focused on the lyrium; it looked almost hostile, as much as a mineral can be so. For a second the whispers intensified in his head… he recoiled, moving away, and the whispering subsided.

"And don't come too close to the lyrium. At all costs."

 **-/-**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** In Kirkwall, Fenris says he comes from Seheron. But even despite this bloodright, after his entire life churning his grief and blame for killing the entire tribe that took him in, I think it's 100% unlikely that he would just ease into the community without needing to repent somehow – even if the community itself refused to blame him.

In case you missed it, I am FASCINATED by Seheron and its natives.


	22. Breaking point

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 6: Breaking point**

 **Chapter 6: Breaking point**

The fits repeated. But the next time, Hawke knew what to do; and when she found Fastus – _Solas –_ shivering on the floor and calling out for the long-gone nightmares, she just let him lie. She sat close, talking in calm voice, and sometimes he replied; spilling out soft syllables of the ancient elven language, he seemed to talk freely, his unfocused eyes gazing at the long-dead people in his dreams. She grazed his lips with honey from his pouch, and he calmed at that; she didn't quite understand why, but perhaps it did not matter. Some rituals were old enough not to expect an explanation…

 _Old enough to warrant a name hahren._ How old was he? How did he survive? The longer she was in his company, the longer she understood that he was _not_ a simple Dalish. She was reasonably sure that he was of the age where _vallaslin_ were simply demanded – and yet his face was perfectly clear, untouched by the blood tattoos. He never responded to any of her prodding and taunting when she called him out on his Dalishness – she'd just assumed that because he did not protest, it had to be true.

 _Liar._ But he'd told her so himself.

She spoke to him about Lothering, about father, about the Blight, about Bethany. Then she spoke of Kirkwall; the year she'd spent as a mercenary, where she'd hardened so much that her mother barely recognised her; the year after that, when she met Varric and - like a ripping out an aching tooth, she described a memory perfectly clearly – a young Grey Warden healing the refugees, one with bright golden eyes filled with an ideal, and her hardness of a mercenary melted somehow in the company of a healer and a _believer_.

It was painful to remember Anders, especially at the first days; but it was infinitely better than remembering _Fenris._

She was never sure how much he actually heard, or understood, of her rambling stories at his bedside. But there was a sense of strange camaraderie between them now, an odd, unspoken deal that was never made explicit, yet could be felt in the change in the air.

Once, when she was facing her own nightmare – Fenris' charred face watching her with quiet disappointment, lyrium in his scars turned red, _your fault your fault your fault_ – an enthusiastic licking woke her up. Vindr had propped himself up against her and was expressing his love towards his mistress in the best way he could, messily and loudly. Shrugging off the mabari, she sat up – and she saw that the dog had gotten in through the half-open door.

It could have been a mistake, or a coincidence.

But Fastus – Solas _–_ did not make mistakes like that.

She continued her water training, and in a short time she could feel the emptiness around her heart pulsate with power again. It felt new, and slightly foreign – instead of sparkling heat, there was simply a _presence._ She felt colder, slower, more thoughtful. The power was returning, in some ways familiar, but still different, like an old friend met again after many years – a stranger despite their intimate history. There were things she knew, and things she had to re-learn, and things she'd never tried before – and Solas was more patient now, though just as silent. _He was a teacher._

She missed the fire.

One time, he led her further away from the hut, following the stream downhill to the bottom of a small glen. There was a small rocky pond at the foot of the hill, of the size perfect for a bath; the water shimmered through it, leaving it clear and inviting. He showed her how to redraw her fire runes so they worked in alignment with her new core; and when she cast one deep under the rocks, and across the stream, the water in the pond started steaming invitingly.

Aedale stared at it. She hadn't had a proper bath in _ages…_

When she turned back to look at Solas, he was gone.

It seemed to be another of his small gifts, subtle things that painted his intentions as clearly as the soft, defined brushstrokes in the hut – he was paying her back for being _a friend. It's shameful to take without giving…_

It wasn't bad.

Hawke enthusiastically stripped to her smallclothes and dived into the pond. The water was gorgeous – hot and steaming, within minutes turning her muscles limp and relaxed… She slumped to the bottom of the pool in satisfied, boneless relief, breathing in the hot vapours. For a short second, the inner warmth of her fire was back – and she felt like a deep stab of ice, put right in the middle of her chest, was slowly melting down in the heat.

She closed her eyes. It was so easy to pretend that the world was the way it had been…

A quiet splash sounded next to her, and she reacted instinctively. A sudden jolt of ice shot through the pond – stopping inches from Solas' eyes.

He put down his hand, and the icy arrow fell into the hot water. Aedale stared at him; he was standing in the water waist-deep, his pale-white chest naked and hairless like his scalp. He did not take off the bone amulet, now hanging at his breast like a bizarre pagan relic. She could not oversee the taut, wiry muscles of his chest and shoulders, proportional like an old Tevinter statue and just as unreal - and yet, despite a show of physical strength, there was something strangely vulnerable in seeing him almost naked; as if, in the act of uncovering, he had bared something more profound than just skin.

In better times, when they were on the road, she'd bathed with Merrill enough times to know what a Dalish looked like – scrawny and thin to the point of almost-starvation, with wary, guarded eyes of someone hunted for sport, and the swirling lines of _vallaslin_ coiled around their entire bodies. Now, staring at him, she could see all the subtle ways it was _wrong_ – and it wasn't even the damning lack of the blood writing. He was too tall, he stood too proud, he moved with too much relaxed certainty, and whereas in _Fenris_ the pride stiffening his neck came from the raw rebellion against the world and its laws, _Solas_ seemed completely and utterly at ease, naturally sliding into a position of power.

How could she have ever mistaken him for a Dalish?

He saw her staring and his mouth curled into a familiar half-mocking smile.

"One could have sworn you've never seen an elf in your life, Champion."

 _Could've sworn you've never seen a woman in your life, Fenris, she taunted breathlessly when he turned his head away. And she was covered still, the breastband singed but in place, Anders' hands spreading soothing spirit magic over the gigantic red slash from her collarbone to the hip. She had been careless with that demon, but oh, was it worth it, she could almost imagine Fenris' ears burning as she teased him, light-headed from blood loss… He'd walked away on her that night, but her sight would still make him turn away and blush. That was as much of a revenge as she would have ever gotten._

"You overestimate my virtue, _hahren_. Though I can definitely say you're the first hermit I see _that_ much of." She held his gaze unashamedly, refusing to blush. The dull ache of the memory made it easier – that part of her was dead now. "From my experience, members of your profession are not particularly fond of the idea of bathing."

"And here we are having one, a hermit and a Fereldan. Unheard of at the very least."

"Next thing you know, my mabari will be joining us with backscrubs and salts."

Solas gave a short bark of laughter. "Perish the thought."

He gracefully lowered himself into the water alongside her until his shoulders disappeared in the steaming water. Hawke closed her eyes and focused on the rhythm of deep breaths, in, out, in out… With every exhale, the thick black fumes of grief seemed to ease off from inside her chest. There was something comforting and relaxing in breathing in the swirling white vapours of the pond, feeling their moisture on the back of her throat.

They sat in companionable silence for a long while. To her surprise, Solas was the one to break it.

"Was the golden-haired healer the lover you mourn?"

Hawke shot him a sharp look. _So he hears. He remembers._ She thought back to the last night she'd found him shivering with the nightmares, and the way he relaxed – she could almost see his wiry frame unclench – to her story. He seemed to be fond of them, the liar he was. Suddenly she wished she spoke Elvhen and understood the full extent of his half-conscious ramblings each time…

"That would be a no, then." He correctly deciphered her silence and stretched languidly on his side of the pond, sinking even lower into the hot water until the surface touched his chin. "However, you did love him."

"Why even ask? You seem to know the tale better than I do," said Aedale dryly. "Maybe next time I'll have you tell me my life story."

"I'm merely drawing on what you've supplied yourself."

"What exactly did I supply, Solas? I wasn't even sure you could hear that. Do excuse a girl for feeling slightly unsure when she finds out she'd been eavesdropped on." That was unfair and she knew that. The irritation was sincere, but unfounded. She'd given her story freely; she'd known that there was a chance he listened, and she did it still. She didn't have to look down to Solas to see this exact sentiment written all over his face.

"Why did you tell your story next to me, Hawke, if you don't wish to have me know it?"

She breathed out. _Maker, that wasn't it. I just wish I'd known you were conscious then._ "I don't know. It's not exactly secret, my story, you know. When you're friends with the people I'm friends with, you're lucky if you make it through the day without some epic stuff crawling out and spitting fire at you. And then you should just _try_ stopping Varric from that endless blabbering he does."

"Ah, yes. The dwarven storyteller. So you do wish your story known."

She shrugged. "I don't think I've ever been asked."

"Were you not? With every choice you make, Champion, you weave yourself into the narrative of the world, and you shape it like a stone thrown into the pond. Out of your own will, you bend the reality around you, and the reality knows. This is where your friend's stories come from."

"Really? And here I was, thinking that they came from an overly dramatic imagination coupled with the profound boredom of Merchant's Guild." But her face softened, and for the first time in days she thought about Varric – the first real friend the City of Chains offered her, and the rock he'd been throughout all those years, with countless rounds won and lost in Wicked Grace, countless barbs exchanged over ale, countless shots fired out of Bianca, the one and only...

 _And the hot, wet mark on her skin when she cried out for Fenris. So fucking sorry, Hawke._

Suddenly her wordless escape from the Keep _stung_.

"Say what you will, Champion, but most men will live their lives as no more than a passing stranger in someone else's tale. Few have a chance to become protagonists of their own story, and fewer still have the comfort of it being told from a perspective of a faithful friend. Should it be twisted, it shall be in your favour."

"Fair point." There was a kernel of bitterness in that last sentence that she might have missed, were she not staring at him across the water. His eyes were at the level of her shoulders; strange thing, she thought, to actually feel taller than him for once. His head was pale and glistening like carved marble, like a polished skull.

And his face was dull, his eyes dimmed, his mouth flattened into an expressionless line.

Whatever his story was, it had been twisted – and she wondered whether the paintings in the hut were meant to undo it, to set history right at least in front of himself.

"What's uthenera?"

"A waking dream," he answered smoothly, with barely a pause, but his eyes flashed. "You might recognise the tale of the sleeping elvhen Dreamers at the top of the ageless Sundermount. Once, millennia ago, elvhen would slumber there, their spirits roaming the Fade."

Hawke considered it carefully. She remembered Sundermount well. At the top of the ageless mountain, where she'd brought Flemeth's amulet, slashing her way through the warrior corpses – and after a song that could not be described in another way that just hauntingly _sad_ , the woman had been reborn…

And then she'd turned into a dragon.

 _Uthenera…_ She dug deep in her memory. The word had seemed alien, but now, when she knew what to connect it with, fragments of strange, broken rhymes started hesitantly flowing back to her consciousness.

"So, _in uthenera na revas_ would mean _…_ "

"There is freedom in the waking dream," finished Solas flatly. She felt the air change, as something between them changed and shifted; his eyes were wary now, cold and closed off. "Pardon me, Champion, I did not realise you were so well-versed in elven customs."

How much, Hawke wondered, of his friendship depended on her being ignorant? Did he choose her on purpose, knowing that she would not be able to decipher his half-conscious rambling, and would not make sense of the cryptic allusions he threw around for his own amusement?

"I'm not. I just happened to hear that song when I was at the peak of Sundermount. Listening to mystical dragon-spawning poetry whilst knee deep in undead blood is not an experience I could easily forget."

"So that's where it happened. Sundermount."

"That's where what happened?"

He shot her a sideways glance and she realised, not for the first time, that _elves were such a pain to be around._ Their mythology was so thick and so ever-present that a human outsider lacked even the basic tools to hold a conversation. At least Merrill did not look at her as if she were an idiot when she asked a question.

"Asha'belannar," he said slowly, as if he were speaking to a retarded child, "granted you the honour of being her messenger. You were the tool of her rebirth. That's what happened on Sundermount, Aedale Hawke."

 _There it goes again. The teacher tone._ "The issue of credibility aside, how can you possibly know that, Solas?"

He flashed another half-mocking smile. "The answer lies in your questions."

The questions… Uthenera.

"You're a somniari, a Dreamer." That was actually easy, and the almost-surprised look Solas gave her was a reward on its own. Maybe she'd get a gold star in class, this time… She decided to top it up. "Not the first one I'm meeting either, if you can believe it. Kind of undermines all that mysticism about you being so rare and stuff."

He furrowed his brows, but did not raise to the bait. Hawke thought of Feynriel, remembered how the Desire tempted each of her friends away from her in their waking dream, and shuddered. Hopefully the boy fared better in Tevinter. The letters she'd gotten were promising...

Unless all somniari shared Solas' semi-comatose illness.

"Is it because you're a Dreamer that you have that… problem?" The question she was really asking must have shone through, and the elf shook his head.

"Yes, but you need not worry about your other friend. My… predicament comes from too long a dream. I am yet to regain my strength after it, but I sincerely doubt it would be an issue for many others."

 _Too long a dream._ She was stepping on thin ice here, but she had not gained her title by being cautious and thoughtful. "How long have you been asleep?"

"Long," he answered simply, putting just enough finality into the syllable to make any other questions void.

 _It was worth a try._ She flashed a crooked smile and relaxed into the water. In a sense, she had to admit that she enjoyed having a riddle to crack, living with one under the same rooftop, breaking the careful cipher of someone who played the game of deception masterfully enough…

It distracted her.

"Tell me," Solas said after another long while, threading the water with his long fingers, "what became of the golden-haired healer?"

She froze at the question. _So much for distraction._ An unwanted image of Anders flashed in her mind, a wretched creature of Vengeance kneeling in front of her after her city, her life, her entire _world_ had crumbled to pieces. _My friend, my healer, my golden-haired golden-hearted man of a shining, fiery ideal, putting out milk for the stray cats and yearning for justice._

"I ask myself every day whether I should have killed him."

The flatness of her voice turned his head. He sat up straighter so he towered over her again, the droplets of water trailing down his chin along the tense, wiry tendons on his throat, down to the little valley chiselled over his collarbone.

Aedale closed her eyes not to look. In another life, it might have been an invitation to share a bath with another man. In another life, where she was free and not dead inside, charred to ashes and drowned with the man she loved.

In another life.

His voice sounded from the darkness behind her eyelids. "Why?"

It took her a long second to refocus. "Because he changed. Because he forgot that his cause was to heal and not wreak havoc. Because he chose to want vengeance over justice. Because he blew up the world. Because he said he loved me, and in the end I was nothing more but just a tool to further his purpose. Pick your reason, Solas, I should have seen them for what they were long before the Kirkwall Chantry fell from the sky."

"And what were they?"

"Distractions," she bit back another word that threatened to bubble up, "lies I told myself to rationalise actions of a possessed man."

Solas raised an eyebrow. "I take it that possessed is not a metaphor here."

"No. He was in a union with the spirit of Justice when I met him. Then it got corrupted into Vengeance."

This time it was Solas who closed his eyes. Anger, regret, and grim determination passed through his face quickly, leaving something throttled and restrained.

"I'll have you know, Hawke, that spirits are… dear to me," he said in a strange tone. "For a Dreamer, they can be more real than the physical beings of the waking world. This is a great injustice done in the name of something pure and undeserving."

"Yes," she said quietly. _Anders used to be good._ "And the spirit suffered too."

There was more anger in his gaze now, and somehow she preferred it. "Do _not_ make light of it."

"I'm not. I'm saying that Justice wasn't the only one who took the fallout."

Solas' face darkened. "Spirits have no inherent knowledge of good and evil. They are an answer to a human wish, and it is the corruption behind that wish that twists their nature."

"I'm not denying that. I'm saying that whatever darkness there was in Anders, he coped with it _just fine._ But Justice dragged it out to the open and made it everyone's business."

"It is not a spirit's fault to be shaped by its dwelling place."

"No," she snapped, to her surprise just as angry as he was, "it's not Justice's fault for being there, but it's not Anders' fault either for being fucking _human_!"

Somewhere in the middle of the sentence, she felt cold. Cold, cold, cold, the icy tendrils of grief and anger and helplessness and-

Ice had crept up from where she was sitting, trapping her shoulders within, magic running away. Her heart was pounding wildly, a lump of hardened ice in her chest.

She flailed desperately, trying to force herself free, but the ice was hardening, spreading with her panic. Solas looked at her, his gaze impassive, testing, empty -

A long moment passed.

And then the ice shattered in one powerful blast, and the hot, steaming water washed over her in a powerful wave of relief.

Hawke shivered so violently that she couldn't stop herself. Her breathing frantic, she could feel the tears pouring down her face and her mouth curling into an unwilling, pathetic moan. _Gone, gone, gone, Anders is gone, Kirkwall is gone, the world is gone, Fenris-_

-two hands closed on her shoulders, hot as a smith's forge and just as unyielding, and she shuddered even harder feeling skin on skin, but he didn't let go – a part of her recognised the same way she'd held him when he was half-conscious and vulnerable – an old elven man, a hermit, a secret, a, a… _a lifeline so raw and so primal because there was no one else who understood, and they had to have someone so they had each other. Distractions. Each other's distractions._

She'd expected his skin to be cold like marble or enamelled bones.

It burned.

Hating herself and at the same time feeling that she'd burst – or freeze – if she didn't do it, she leant closer and reached for his own shoulders. Hot and coated in a thin layer of water and sweat, they felt like fire when she closed her hands on them. He wrapped his arms around her, a gesture that could mean everything – _comfort friendship humility desire want –_ and she clung to the fire in his chest, weeping for the warmth that she'd lost and the city she'd fled and the friends she'd abandoned and the love she'd killed.

Solas just stood there, his breast rising and falling slowly against her head in a gentle undulating rhythm. His bone amulet felt sharp and rough on her skin. Like an anchor.

After an eternity, she let go of him – the world got a little colder – and attempted to retreat into her side of the pond, keenly aware that they clung to each other in their smallclothes only.

Solas' hands clasped on her shoulders again, strong enough to make her shiver. "Hawke," he said, his voice low, "I thank you for your trust."

She heard what he was saying underneath it. _I don't trust you, nor will I ever do so, but you are strong enough and broken enough to understand whatever darkness I carry – and help me through the weakness I will soon transcend. In turn, I would do the same…_

The skin on his throat was glistening from the steam.

It would be so easy to kiss him.

… _Taking without giving is shameful._ Tevene in exchange for reading and writing…

She gave a short, sharp nod, not trusting her voice. Solas' hands lingered on her shoulders for another long moment – _who was_ he _thinking about when he looked at her from this close? –_ and let her go, retreating into the steaming water.

Something had been missed, something had been averted, something had been opened and now the possibilities lay in front of them, but neither had dared to take them.

 _Me paenitat, my Little Wolf, my love,_ she invoked in the turbulence of her own disquieted mind, in the aftershocks in what could have been grief, panic, mourning… desire. The ice ran away from her just as easily as fire once had, and it froze her, it _paralysed_ her. And Solas- _no. Don't think it._ _Me paenitat, me paenitat, me paenitat._

"I held you back, Champion. But you plunge into extremities without control, be it fire or water. I was foolish giving you a stream or a pond. This would _not_ contain you. You cannot live with something that ice can throttle."

She raised her gaze. Her fingertips still felt the echo of his heat.

"You will go into the sea."

His eyes flashed with dark green, the colour of the geode he carried in his pouch, and she did not mistake the heat that pooled in her belly for fear only.

-/-

Fenris woke up in the darkness to the smell of something burning. He reflexively grabbed the staff and cursed – the wood was _scorching._ It must have been singing the furs it lied on.

Wrapping his hand around a piece of hard leather, he tried again. And suddenly the lyrium came alight in his veins, filling him with raw power so overwhelming that he gasped breathlessly- _fire, burning fire blazing hot and bright in a column of light._

"Fenris! _Vishante kaffas,_ what in Lusaac's name is that?!" Asha was at his side in an instant.

He forced his fingers open – and the staff fell down heavily, the scorch marks perfectly clear in the silver light of his tattoos. The power faded away.

"Hawke," he whispered to himself, the lyrium still hot in his skin in the aftershocks of the power. "Where are you? _What are you doing?!_ " 

**-/-**

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** You guessed it – someone is hot for the teacher. Fenris is not going to like this.

This is Solas' early days, when he is still struggling to keep awake from uthenera, and he cannot open the orb by himself. It is canon-established that his greatest fear is dying alone – and so he draws comfort from Hawke's presence, in something that can be called a temporary truce of mutual benefit. She, on the other hand, is enjoying the fact that for once she is not asked to lead; plus the mysterious-ancient-elf aura of Solas is good enough to make her not think about all the dead she'd left behind.

Hawke doesn't know what an uthenera is nor how long it is meant to last. In her head, it's equivalent to the trance of a Dreamer that she's seen in Feynriel. Technically, Solas has not lied to her on that – he just gave the facts that seemed like a good enough explanation. She senses he's older than he looks, but not how old exactly.

This part has run away from me a bit, it's probably going to be longer than eight chapters. I'll keep you posted.


	23. Lightning Abyss

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 7: Lightning Abyss**

He wanted to go alone, immediately. Asha had to physically stop him from climbing out of the chasm.

"The tribes know these forests better than you. If your Champion is anywhere on the island, we'll find her."

Fenris clenched his fists in fruitless fury. He knew. He understood that it was not a wise thing to do. And yet the fire was calling him from the staff, tinged with desperation and fear and – Hawke's aura was like that sometimes, just before the moments she did something really, really stupid.

It had been like that before she charged at the Arishok, alone.

And he'd had to watch it. He'd walked out of that room in her mansion, with only the memory of her body etched into his mind more painfully than the lyrium – and he'd had to watch that same body, lithe and small and fragile like a piece of stained glass, stand against the bulk of the Arishok. And her fire was mad, and before she cast the first spell, she'd looked at him and – _if she'd died then that look would have haunted him for the rest of his life._ He still had nightmares about it.

He broke free out of Asha's grip and started pacing restlessly.

"I need to go."

"You only just arrived, Fenris!"

"No. I need to go into the Deep Roads. I need to-" _Kill something._ He stopped short of saying it, but Asha's look told him she understood anyway.

"We'll assemble a team and leave at sunrise."

"We don't need to wait for the sun in the Deep Roads, Asha. And I don't need anybody else. This is my responsibility."

"You _stupid,_ mad-" She bit back a curse. "Fine. Let me just grab the weapons."

"I said _anybody,_ Asha."

"And I said, let me grab the weapons. Now if we're done repeating ourselves…" She shot him a hard glance, turned away, and walked back to her tent, manoeuvring her way around the pitch-black cave. He could see it with his elven eyes, but she must have been relying on the acute sense of space that each Fog Warrior learnt as a first survival skill.

He followed her, angry and restless. "I don't need you to come with me."

"You might have been a lonely hunter for all those years, White Wolf, but the Coruscati hunt as a pack. Or do you doubt me because you remember me as a helpless child? Either way, I _am_ coming with you."

She emerged from the inside of the tent in a short moment, carrying the fog bombs and two swords. Without saying anything, she presented one to him, and a shiver went through him when his fingers clenched on a Fog Warrior hilt. So long…

"Good weapon."

"It was my father's."

Hyruna's face flashed in his mind, and the sound – the wet splash of spilt blood, after a mechanic blow that slashed the fog dancer's throat… He handed the weapon back to her, his hand shaking slightly. "I can't take it, Asha."

"You can either take it and be grateful, or wait till dawn to get another one. You're not going into the caverns with just that stick you carry, and you're sure as Void not getting mine." Her eyes were steely, and she made no gesture to reclaim the sword. "Your choice."

Frustration boiled up to the surface. "I won't take it."

"Fine! Reject what is rightfully yours, and play the role of the Tevinter puppet they've always wanted you to be!" She was angry too, angry and worried, the same frustration that he felt seeping through her regal features. But her words felt like a slap.

"I am _not_ a puppet, Asha! I have no master, and my choices were _mine_ – why can't you see that this is me taking responsibility for what I've done?! I had been free – and I _killed your father_ -"

She turned around and started walking into the caverns, a sack with bombs and basic provisions in hand, without as much as a glance back. He followed her, seething.

"Why can't you just understand the _obvious-!_ "

"I've fought Tevinter for my entire life, Fenris. I had older brothers once, and Tevinters killed them. I had a mother once, and Tevinters killed her. I had a father once. I had a tribe. But this is a life of a Fog Warrior, and if _you_ can't understand the losses that govern our lives, then maybe you've spent too much time outside of the jungle."

"So avenge the murderers!"

" _I am,_ " she barked. "Every second of my waking life! Do you not understand why the dancers didn't ask you to _save_ our warriors from the Qunari camps instead of just sealing the tunnels? Because they're dead, Fenris, they were mothers and fathers and siblings and now they're dead, just like my own father. This is the reality of Seheron. This – _this_ is our life. Enemy is everywhere, and we die, and then our brothers and sisters fight on, in our name and theirs. Death is our companion, so we _know_ our enemies from our friends!"

They were walking away from the camp now, further and lower than where the fog dancers' quarters were, and walking lower still. The darkness felt as smothering as her words.

"So why was I even let in?! If you knew all along that I was dangerous, _why did you let me in, Asha_?!"

"My father took a chance. He knew the risk, he knew the machinations of Tevinter better than you and I will ever know them. You were a- not a tool, you were a _victim,_ Fenris, and I understand that you blame yourself, but my father chose you for a reason!"

"A reason?" he snarled. "What reason is worth dying for? Losing all the Coruscati?!"

"Don't you talk about loss to me, White Wolf." She turned around, stopping abruptly, and he almost fell into her. "I know what I lost. I know by whose hand."

"It was your _tribe,_ Asha."

" _You_ are my tribe right now!" Her raised voice echoed down the cavern. "Tevinter took everything away from me. My mother, my brothers, my father, my lineage and my people. But for all they've taken away, _you came back._ You came _back,_ Fenris. You tore yourself out of their hands, and you came back. And between you and me, we are- we're the last of the Coruscati. This is the way of Seheron. We live on. We don't mourn our dead, we hold on to whatever we've wrenched out of the enemy's grasp, and _we live on._ So just take the goddamn sword."

The depth of her anguish and determination and the unyielding hope stunned him.

She was so much like Hawke.

"I have no other weapons than those two swords. One is mine, the other my father left for you to wield. So you can claim what was meant for you, or you can reject it. Please, White Wolf. You were never meant to be a slave."

"I'm not-" His throat thickened with emotion. _Hyruna left the sword for him. He'd known the risk, he'd known that he could die by him hand, and he still left the sword…_ "I'm not a slave anymore, Asha."

"But if you turn away from the heritage of your tribe, then what _are_ you claiming? What history? Tevinter?! Who _are_ you, Fenris?!"

" _I don't know!_ "

He hadn't screamed for a long time. His voice felt weak, quivering, almost as if it was scared of its own sound.

"I don't know," he repeated more quietly. "If I can win my right to be a Fog Warrior again, I will be a Fog Warrior. But I have no bloodright, Asha. No heritage. I cannot claim it."

Asha looked at him, her expression heavy with meaning.

"My father died for you to be free. The blood that he spilt is your bloodright."

With that, she resumed her pace, leaving Fenris speechless in the dark.

He clasped his hand on the sword. Hyruna was… he was patient, and kind, ashen-skinned and white-haired like himself. And he told him that he'd been marked as a Fog Warrior, a white ghost in the fog, fearless and fearsome…

Had he known? Had he realised, all that time, that the slave he'd taken in would soon kill his tribe one by one? Had he recounted the risk of freeing one man, and the lives of his kin, and chosen – chosen to trust Fenris…

The thought about owing his life to such tremendous sacrifice made him tremble. _He'd failed that trust._

But – but somehow, in a strange way, he was back. Something drew him to Seheron from the shores of Amaranthine. Hyruna'd had plans for him, whatever they could possibly be. And by the right of blood spilt for _his_ sake, he had a responsibility to fulfil them – he had a bloodright…

The blood of the fog dancer that he spilt himself, sunk into the ground and _calling._ In the jungles of Seheron, nothing stayed in the ground for long: soon the trees breathed it out in the shape of the fog.

"Does it have a name?" he called after Asha.

She turned her head to look at him, despite the fact that he'd known she couldn't see in the darkness. "What?"

"The sword. Does it have a name?"

There was a pause. "Fulga," she said finally, her tone unreadable. "It's called Fulga."

 _Lightning._

The old story flashed in his mind, a great warrior that saddled the Tempest and wielded the Lightning as a sword…

"Why, Asha? Why me? What did your father see in that wounded slave ten years ago that freeing me was so important?"

"You were one of us," she said. "That's enough."

But despite the firm, final tone of her voice, Asha forgot that he could see her face in the darkness – and there was something else in it.

 **-/-**

They moved through the tunnels quickly, in complete darkness and silence; he was relying on his elven eyes, she on her instincts of the Fog Warrior. The lower they descended, the more the caverns resembled what Fenris remembered from their Deep Roads expedition, years ago; high-ceilinged roads laying in ruin, the coloured stone shattered and disfigured so there was no recognising the hazy silhouettes of dwarven paragons. Parts of the route had collapsed, and they spent a long time looking for a detour; but for all the _strangeness_ of the tunnels, they hadn't encountered anything more dangerous than a pack of deepstalkers.

Finally, after long hours of walking what seemed to be an endless circular labyrinth, Fenris noticed the slight change in the darkness.

"Asha."

"Do you see it too?" she asked, staring directly ahead. "I didn't think sunlight would get this low."

"We must be close to the end of the tunnel. Ready yourself."

In the darkness, he saw her reach for the bombs. "Do you still remember how to fight in the fog?"

"You saw me with the Tal-Vashoth. You tell me."

She smirked, picking up the pace so she was now in front of him – an obvious guarding position. He snorted silently. For a people so open and vocal, Fog Warriors sure possessed an affinity to insult without even saying a word.

There was no doubt now: the darkness was dispersing. But for the end of a tunnel – the entrance to the Deep Roads – the air was strangely still, unperturbed by any sound either on theirs or the other side. Something was…

He clashed the blunt edge of the sword against the stone. Asha cringed at the sudden sound.

… wrong.

"Asha. This is not the end of the tunnel."

"But I can see light-" she trailed off, listening to the echoes. For another human, it could have been nothing. But for a Fog Warrior, and for an elf...

" _Kaffas_. You're kidding me."

"We're at the bottom of the chasm," said Fenris quietly, and in this very second the tunnel ended – revealing a distant white speck of the sky miles above them, framed by the mountainous heights of sharp black rock.

They were deep in the belly of the earth, staring at the last glimmer of light carved in by the crevasse.

" _Vorago fulgurum,"_ whispered Asha, staring above. _The Lightning Abyss._

"Did you expect this?"

"No. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere."

Her words, even as quiet as they were, carried upwards the humongous cliffs. Fenris lowered his gaze from the distant opening of the chasm, taking in the charred open space that they'd walked out on. The bottom of the crevasse was uneven, littered with sharp rocks and piles of rubble, some – it seemed – freshly fallen off the cliffs. But under the resting avalanches, the rock at the bottom seemed smooth and undulated, like solidified lava.

Even as a rock formation, it looked eerily unnatural.

"Asha… how did the chasm open?"

"There was a tempest," she said quietly. "Shortly after you were taken. We never saw anything like it before or after. It shook the world, and when a lightning hit, it split the island on half."

 _Shortly after I killed your tribe._ "Did your father know it was coming?"

Asha hesitated. "My father… knew _something_ was coming. A change for the Fog Warriors. Seheron awaited this sign for a long time."

"But what did it mean?"

"Shelter," she said simply. And Fenris remembered how, when all the other Fog Warrior camps he'd known were just makeshift and temporary, there were carvings on the walls of the cave and children's toys scattered around… "Safety. A place of our own in our land. This is the first time in centuries the Fog Warriors have won a piece of Seheron for ourselves."

"But now the Qunari have found an entrance to the tunnels."

Asha's regal features darkened. "Not for long. We'll find them tonight, Fenris. We should go back and bring the warriors down here-"

She trailed off.

Ever so softly, like a chime of nightmarish bells in the distance, they could hear a faint echo of clattering steel.

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Life's finally got out of the way of writing, and I'm baaaaack! Two things:

1) I'm really keen on finishing off this story in one go before the end of the summer, we'll see how it goes,

2) it's going to be more chapters than just the usual 8. Prolly a LOT more. Keep your eyes peeled.

The next chapter is already written out, watch this space! And it includes a whole lot of Solas.


	24. Rising tide

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 8: Rising tide**

There was something in the air that night.

They didn't go to sleep. Solas stood from his meditation at sunset and briskly told her to get ready. She did not need to ask what for – on his face there was the same dark, thick emotion that she'd seen in the pond. A shiver went through her.

"I take it we're not going fishing."

"No, Hawke. You'd do well to meditate instead of filling your mind with pointless displays of wit."

"Believe it or not, this works better than meditation."

He shot her another glance, and the smirk died on her lips.

"What we will attempt tonight will be dangerous. Do not disrespect the sheer power of an element by assuming you have time for mockery."

"Oh, Solas. There's always time for mockery." But her words fell flat against his fiery eyes, and a memory flashed in her head: _a rising tide, heavy and old like the time itself, and the overwhelming power of the thrashing water –_ and then the storms on sea, the screams of the crew, the violent rocking, the nausea, the fear of drowning.

She had arrived in Kirkwall on that sea. Years later, she'd tried to save from it the last thing she'd salvaged from the city.

 _Sheer power of the sea? I know it well enough._

Solas' lips twitched in the slightest shade of a self-satisfied smirk. And to her endless surprise – and yet to no surprise at all, not after the stream, not after she'd clung to his hot skin – he reached out and touched her temple with a soft hand. She suppressed a deep shudder – and judging by his dark eyes, it wasn't lost on him.

"Listen, Hawke."

She closed her eyes and listened.

… And the world started thrumming quietly, twisting and weaving like a stream, with a distant, hollow thuds beating out a rhythmical staccato. She gasped with surprise, realising that she was listening to her own blood.

"This is your body," said Solas' voice from the darkness behind her eyelids. "The ever-coursing flow that sustains you. The veins are the rivers of the earth, and they move through your body just like the water moves through the ground." She felt another touch on the other side of her face, and he was now holding her by the temples, in a shockingly intimate way, in a heart-twisting imitation of how Fenris had held her once. It was _wrong._ "But all rivers come and go from the sea. And the sea…"

The pounding in her ears increased to almost deafening levels.

"… is your heart."

She felt the Fade fold around them, and for a split second there was nothing but the crystalline silver lights of the world Beyond – and Solas' form changed, twisted into something tall and proud and – _and there was the Wolf, the howling Wolf at the broken line of the history –_ and it lasted forever but ended in a flash and it was – gone.

They stood at the Storm Coast.

He slowly lowered his hands from her temples, and she looked around, shocked and in awe at the same time. The sea waves were almost reaching her feet, and the air was sharp, cold, and clear.

"How did you guide us here? My Fade steps are never that neat."

"You're focusing on the wrong thing again, Hawke."

She scoffed breathlessly. "Sorry, _hahren._ Will try to earn my gold star next time." But her mind was restless, and – and he wore an expression so dark and so intense that she abandoned all pretences.

"Seriously, Solas. What is it _really_ about? Don't patronise me like I'm dumb. This is not about me. I just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you took me in for a reason, but _what_ is that reason?"

He looked down at her face, and something stirred in her. "You're free to abandon me at any point, Champion. Shall I return you to the hut?"

"I said, don't patronise me. I know you're helping me. I want to know _why._ "

A cynical smile appeared on Solas' face. "Very well. Because I believe in kindness returned and deals paid off."

"Yeah, but what is the deal, Solas? It doesn't work if you're the only side that knows."

"Knowledge is a burden, Champion. Do not ask for it lightly."

"I'm not."

They stood in the grey sand of the Storm Coast under the dark night sky, the waves beating monotonously against the sharp rocks of the shore, and they looked at each other, both unyielding.

Finally –

"If you possess the strength to bend the sea to your will, Hawke, and if you succeed, I will ask you a favour. But do not try to know what it would be before its time."

"Why not?"

"Because it will kill you," he stated simply, eyes never leaving hers. Hawke frowned.

"Asking will kill me? Or the favour?"

"Yes."

"Which of them?"

"One."

She let out a long breath. "So it's a joint deal. You help me, I help you." _Taking without giving is shameful._ "You should have told me way before."

"I was unsure whether you were… appropriate." His gaze dropped to her lips, and oh Maker, she felt like she was actually going to blush – with this one sentence, Solas had just managed to tell a million things, and not one of them was obvious. And if she gave anything away, if she showed her embarrassment, then there would be more of those self-satisfied smirks…

But she could see it already, _he knew,_ and something stirred in her. He was playing with her.

"How could I be inappropriate? I'm an _adult_ , Solas. And I certainly have-" His laughter interrupted her, as close to genuine mirth as she had ever heard him, his head bowed down in trying to contain the escaping chuckling. "Did I miss a joke somewhere?"

It took him a while to regain his composure, and Aedale felt the irritation drag out the blush that the embarrassment could not. "Do share it, _hahren._ I sure want to have a chuckle at my own expense too."

He breathed out and straightened his neck, a stray streak of amusement still pulling up the corner of his lips. "Pardon me, Hawke. Forgive an old man to find humour in questionable sources."

"But what did I-"

"Now," he interrupted her again, just as easily as his laughter had before, with the most irritating confidence without even a hint of doubt that he had the _right,_ "shall we return to the task at hand?"

She huffed with annoyance, but obliged. Skipping on the wet stones gracefully, he led her to the flat rocks that marked the furthest piece of land claimed by the sea, black and covered in stains of dried salt – and sat down in his usual cross-legged position. She followed suit; there wasn't much space on the rock, and so, despite her attempts to prevent that, their knees were touching. And it could have _seemed_ like an accident, or a coincidence, but considering how thoughtful he was in everything else he did – Hawke cursed internally, realising that he had chosen that narrow a rock _on purpose._

It was childish, but for a minute she considered standing up and going to sit onanother rock, just to foil his stupid machinations – but then his hand closed on her left wrist, encircling it with two fingers, and she barely supressed a shudder.

His index finger pressed the artery at the inside of her wrist, a gentle yet firm touch. "Your pulse, Hawke."

His skin was hot.

"What _about_ my pulse?" Her voice certainly did _not_ come out slightly breathless. And if it did, it was due to the wind and perhaps the Fade step and not anything else – certainly not the warmth that Solas' grip was radiating on her wrist. "I thought you were already convinced I had one. You really have me worried, Solas, a few more of those trials and you might start suspecting I'm not actually an undead."

A grimace went through his face and she felt absurdly proud. " _Focus._ "

"Right away, _hahren_."

Closing her eyes, she brought her attention back to the coursing blood. It was flowing steadily, bringing in the warmth and the breath from the heart around the chest, along the line of the spine, up to the head, down to the fingers and toes… flowing in, flowing out, coursing in a closed circuit, push followed by pull, pull followed by push…

"Good," sounded the voice of Solas after an eternity. His fingers moved along the inner side of her arm all the way up to the side of her neck, a gesture far too intent and purposeful to be innocent. Once more, Hawke supressed a deep shudder, hoping to the Maker that he wouldn't feel the little lurch of the blood as he pressed his index and middle finger to her carotid artery. "Now the heart."

With considerable effort, she refocused on the inside. The heart was pounding in her ears. Following the arteries and blood flow required physical contact, but Solas- this- this could be subtle, but it was obvious nonetheless.

 _Fenris –_

"Focus, Hawke."

 _Take your hands off me and it could be easier._ She breathed out deeply and evenly, making sure her face remained perfectly blank.

The heartbeat was loud in her ears, and pounding steadily under his fingers- the rhythm, the melody, the breath, in, out, _thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud._ In, out, push, pull, one, two, in, out… _breathe, Aedale._ Life. Power. Water is life. Water is power. Blood is life. Blood is-

 _Wait._

 _WAIT._

She yanked her neck away from his fingers and jerked away, almost falling off a rock. "You're _kidding me._ "

Solas arched an eyebrow. "What disturbs you, Champion?"

"You," she spat violently, scrambling to get away from him. "You disturb me! You told me this was about water, but this- this – this is nothing short of _blood magic!_ "

He inclined his head in polite surprise, one corner of his lip tugged up in a restrained smirk. "What makes you think that, _da'len?_ "

"This power – this water power – doesn't come from within me, it comes from blood! You're a _blood mage!_ " Disgust twisted her features as she climbed on a rock away from him, looking at his wiry frame from above. And he looked so innocent – as if she were just a child throwing a tantrum over nothing. _Blood magic. This explains all the power he had._ That would explain why it felt so different manipulating the magic through the water, why feeling the body was so important, why the moon was relevant… The image of Quentin flashed in her head, and aside from disgust there was one more emotion twisting her insides – betrayal.

 _I wanted to believe you. I wanted to._

"Sit down, Hawke."

"Like hell I will! You will explain everything _now,_ or so help me Maker, I will pull this ocean onto you-"

"Sit _down._ "

Her legs collapsed under her.

She fell gracelessly on the flat rock, cursing. She hadn't even seen him cast the spell. Solas stood up and crossed the rocks with two long steps, sitting down beside her like nothing happened. Her legs felt numb – still there, but numb.

"You _bastard-_ "

He caught her wrist before the slap hit home. "If you insist on behaving like a child, you leave me no choice but to discipline you."

His voice was cold, and suddenly Hawke realised the full extent of her hopeless situation. Solas was a mage – a _blood mage_ – and she couldn't fight back or protect herself. And in addition to being a blood mage, he was apparently a madman. _How the hell did I delude myself into thinking he was on my side?_

"I'm not a blood mage."

Hawke looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"And I am not teaching you any magic that will do you harm."

"Are you teaching me blood magic?"

"I am teaching you magic that involves blood," he said, and his fingers clenched harder on her wrist as she tried to wrestle free. " _Your own blood,_ Hawke. And it will stay inside your body. Where do you think any magic comes from?"

"Fade," she spat. _Fuck you._

"You're not wrong." He caught her other arm. "How do humans control the flow of magic between the Fade and the waking world?"

"With the minds! And definitely not with-"

"With blood," he said, interrupting her effortlessly with icy voice. Anger bubbled up in her throat. "Open your mind, quick child, and try to look beyond the prejudices and transgressions of your species. You have made your own blood an abomination, and taken away the most powerful resource you will ever have."

She stopped thrashing. The way he spoke about it was filled with frustration, seemingly aimed not only at her, but also at all humans…

Could he be telling the truth? Could he be still trustworthy after all? Could the blood _inside_ be the source of power, and the atrocities of blood magic made humans forget? And did elves know? _This could explain why Merrill's attitude was more relaxed._ But at the same time…

"Transgressions?"

"Blood is power," said Solas grimly. "And your kind cannot give up the power if offered. Taking up the blood of another is a crime against balance, and this is what the mages of today understand… but in their fear of extremes, they forget the very source of the balance they're seeking."

Hawke breathed out.

It made sense.

He was an ass, but it made sense.

"Let go, Solas." She met his eyes over his steely grip. For a long moment, they stared each other down – until he finally opened his palms, releasing her wrists.

"I want to believe that. But you're making it really, really difficult to trust you."

"I don't require your trust. I require your cooperation." He straightened his spine and crossed his legs, fixing his eyes on the dark horizon. Following his eyes, she saw a glimpse of a distant fire along the coast. What did he say just a night before? _I thank you for your trust, Hawke…_

"Well, tough. Right now I'm pretty short on either." _For him, I'm just a unreasonable child._ Hawke clenched her fists in frustration. If _she_ was the one being unreasonable, then it made him a bloody madman. Debasing her, disrespecting her, ignoring her, manhandling her… _flirting_ with her? _The child?_

She decided to screw it all.

"You like deals? Here's a deal for you. You will stop treating me like a child _right now,_ or you'll have to accept you're nothing but a horny grandpa hot for the student."

His eyebrows shot up – and suddenly he looked so ridiculously stunned that Hawke burst out laughing. Shock did not belong on Solas' face. It made him look – well – _shocked._

 _All that subtlety, and it's all wasted on someone who cuts to the chase. Ha!_

But then it seemed like he regained control of his features. "I might have… underestimated your bluntness, Hawke."

"Lightly put." She snorted. "You know, humility suits you. I might try to get you to this point more than just once."

"You might well try."

"So? Which is it? Grandpa has the hots for the student or two travellers explore the relationship of mutual respect? Without, if I may, the notion of _disciplining_ in the picture?"

"I don't see how they are mutually exclusive." And just like that, his smoothness was back.

She blinked furiously. "Wait. Hold your horses. Let's review this. What the hell just happened? We were _fighting_ a second ago. You told me this was a type of blood magic. How-"

"Be quiet."

"No, no you don't. You don't get to do that more than once a conversation, this is too confusing _._ It's just endless rollercoaster with you. First you're all dramatic, then I get angry, then we laugh, then you're basically hitting on me- what the heck, Solas?!"

Her voice carried on the water, sounding much louder than it should even when she stopped yelling. Solas closed his eyes in something that looked very much like exhaustion.

It gave her pause. _Is this another attack of… whatever his condition actually is?_

Solas was quiet for a long moment, but it was a different quiet – she could sense that he was still within, not floating away from consciousness like he would, but rather… deliberating on something difficult. After a while, she refocused her attention from his immobile frame back to the sea; and now, aware of the power of blood within, she could feel her magic shift through the body in a strange, organic way.

"You're too quick," he said finally, the words like an echo of something unsaid. "This is… too quick."

She blinked. That was not a compliment. Either she was wrong, or there was some very real confusion and anguish behind this – tucked away carefully and hidden, like she'd come to expect any truth of Solas, but still spilling out through the cracks.

 _Too quick?_

"Am I wearing you out, old man?" She flashed an uncertain smile, but he just shook his head silently. She hushed.

And, guided by a strange instinct, _she_ reached out for _his_ wrist. Solas did not move as she closed her grip, encircling the veins with her fingers.

"What is _up_ with you?"

He did not answer, and it felt like he was falling down into the depths of himself, willing to give not one more reaction. The pulse under her fingers was slow. Too slow for a living thing.

But he was alive.

It did not make sense. This entire thing did not make sense. _He_ didn't make sense.

"Solas. How long were you in the Fade?"

His whisper was barely audible over the murmur of the waves.

"Too long."

His skin was hot under her touch. It was absurd. With a pulse this slow, he should be freezing. She brought her attention down to the little pricks of pulsating energy under her fingertips, a slow, undulating rhythm that was so different from Fenris' heart when she'd felt lying on his chest in the Vinmark- _don't think it._ It was different. And it dragged her in with its languished, deliberate thud, every push a measured move of the heart, every pull a gentle yet overwhelming tug. He seemed _grander,_ build just on a greater scale than anything else; if what he'd said was true and her body – _human_ body – was a tangle of rivers with the heart as the sea, his was an intricate net of currents in the endless ocean.

She reached in.

And her body reacted in unison, something _sparkled_ inside and – as if her blood stood aflame, as if an electric current stood alight in the middle of it – she could see the lines in the sea, the coursing energy in the water around her, the slow, building, mounting power – and the line stretched out in front of her, ready for the taking. A shining pale-blue net revealed itself in this strange, azure night-vision, the invisible strings for the elemental puppet spreading out in front of her in the waves, and Hawke reached out and clasped her fingers on one glimmering strand of power –

And suddenly it seemed obvious.

This was the _real_ sea magic.

"Solas," she articulated with difficulty, focusing on holding the twitching line still in her hand. "One… more… condition."

His eyes were wide open, fixated on hers, and _green._ Green like the orb in his pouch. "Yes."

There was nothing even remotely elven about him.

"You… will… tell me the truth."

"You don't know what you're asking for."

She could feel a salty, metallic taste on her lips. _Nosebleed_. "One… question. Truth."

"Will you know your truth from a liar?" There was something dark and intensely needy in the way he watched her, echoes of the hot spring, the shape of the howling wolf in the Fade-

"No… but you will."

She closed her eyes, but even there the elemental web stayed, burning in the darkness behind her eyelids. The strand she chose was there, quivering painfully in her clenched fist.

"Very well." The hand onto whose wrist she was holding squeezed her own hand in a strange, intimate balance, and the net burst out with new, powerful light. Suddenly Solas was on his feet, pushing her upward in one violent jerk. "Do it, Champion. Raise the sea. Reclaim your magic. Prove yourself to your gods."

Hawke took a deep breath.

"What… gods?!" The blood dripped into her mouth and she felt – not more powerful, not less powerful, _maybe it isn't blood magic after all –_ just the balance, push and pull. Push and pull.

It wasn't fire around her heart, that was gone now. Fenris was gone now. But this was a fullness she could have never anticipated.

 _This is my magic. It came back. It came back stronger, and I've reclaimed it. I'm the Champion, and I will stand ready to the fight that awaits me. I crossed the sea to find him, and I pulled it to save him, and it did not obey. It will obey now._

And, summoning all the anger and all the rage and all the grief and all – _Fenris, I love you – I love you –_ into one powerful tug, Hawke pulled at the sea.

It rose.

Time slowed down.

The strands of the waves were cutting through her hands, the reigns of the muzzled element. But she held them. And the wave was rising and rising, until the lights of the starry sky started spinning over her head, until black, rocky ground was uncovered from the sea bottom, until the half-transparent height of the water stood taller than the cliffs, until – until – she heard distant screams –

And then she realised Solas wasn't touching her anymore, he was standing at her side and staring at the translucent water with wide eyes and something like incredulity and hope in his face.

"Down now," he said, his voice thick with emotion, and she loosened the shining strings in her palms. "Slowly."

The tide descended, bowing to her in its slow fall. Hawke's legs trembled under her, but her mind was clear. Blood dripped from her face down to the chest.

"S-Solas," she stuttered. "The fires- on the other shore-"

"Focus."

"The Wardens-" The monumental, falling wall of the sea wobbled heavily as her control almost slipped. She instinctively reached out for Solas, but he stepped aside, dodging her arm. His eyes were dark, hungry, expectant.

"Focus, Hawke."

She closed her eyes, slowly loosening the strings that bound the sea to her will. Push and pull. Push and pull. In the rhythm of the heart, in the rhythm of the moon… _I'm doing it by myself. He's not helping me. This is my magic._

Hawke opened her palms. The invisible lines slithered out of her grasp, returning to their undisturbed undulation. The sea flowed out with a breath and then returned to her feet with a soft splash.

Then it retreated.

For the second time this night, her knees gave way.

This time, Solas caught her. And yet another muscle memory of Fenris flashed in her mind _, after her duel with the Arishok, after her long and gruelling recovery, he'd catch her like that, and – and - one day -_

"You're not wrong, Hawke. The Wardens are searching for you. They've found your trail at the cave, and now they've seen the sea." Even though his words seemed composed, there was an electric undercurrent to them, an ill-concealed, dark excitement. _What was the favour he wanted to ask?_

"We'd… better go, then." She coughed up the blood. And to her endless surprise, Solas cupped her face in his palm and wiped off the bloodstain with his thumb.

"You did well, Hawke."

Before she could react, the Fade swirled around them and the sea was gone.

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

AUTHOR'S NOTE: SOLASSSS YOU INSUFFERABLE EGG YOU.

Re blood magic: Hawke's assumption might seem ridiculous from the point of view of someone who knows how it affects the connection to the Fade (it hampers it), but from her perspective, it makes sense. It would at least give a viable explanation for Solas' powers. As to whether the explanation *he* gives is accurate canonically - anyone who's played the Descent DLC can work out the magic/blood/lyrium connection, and I fully intend to take advantage of it.

This is very character heavy, and it includes several really strong undercurrents of what motivates him to act like he does. What makes it kinda hard and kinda fun to write is that Hawke mostly has no idea what's going on, but the reader will - cue 'I'm an adult' to an immortal 6,000+yo god? (lolz lolz) But there's more to that, and I'm curious to see how clear it is for you guys. Let me know.

[edit] (also Solas might have a conscience somewhere but he most definitely has NO SHAME because I refuse to believe that someone who canonically says stuff like 'getting you into bed is just an enjoyable side benefit' can be made to blush by literally ANYBODY ON THIS AND ALL ALTERNATIVE EARTHS)


	25. Siege of Seheron

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 9: Siege of Seheron**

Asha stilled, listening to the echoes of the clattering steel in the black heights of the crevasse. In the dark, Fenris could see her mouthing one word.

 _Qunari._

Not just one either. The sounds were getting closer, coming from the other side of the precipice; a rhythmical, rattling sound of marching soldiers. For a second, Fenris thought about Kirkwall all those years ago; in the City of Chains, the Qunari moved through the tunnels.

The strategy seemed to have stuck.

Asha grabbed his arm – he recoiled, but her grip was strong like any Fog Warrior's. Her fingers tapped a quick pattern across his skin, and suddenly something he'd forgotten opened in his mind, a reflexive muscle memory: the way the Warriors communicated in the fog. He'd used to know it, once, the first alphabet he'd ever learnt. He'd still know… Asha squeezed his arm harder and tapped the same rhythm again.

 _Flee._

The signs were coming back to him. He squeezed two times, _no._

 _Protect the camp!_ The exclamation mark, complete with a sharp pinch. His markings flared up at that, and she let go as she'd been burnt. The sudden flash of silver-blue light of his lyrium felt blinding in the darkness.

The clattering stopped abruptly. Asha mouthed one more word. _Kaffas._

The full assessment of the situation took Fenris less than a second. The light in the tunnels were scarce, meaning that the Qunari had probably seen his lyrium flash. They were likely to be followed, then. This meant that Asha's plan, to stealthily retreat to the camp and bring more warriors down, was now null and void. Which, in turn, left his original idea standing: to stay and fight as they were. Judging by Asha's sour expression, she'd made the exact same calculations.

She unsheathed her sword. He did the same, leaving Hawke's staff safely in his back. With her other hand, Asha grabbed his forearm again, tapping a couple of simple symbols: _forward. Shelter. Ambush._

He followed her as she walked out of the tunnel into the open bottom of the crevasse, carefully choosing her steps and the rocks she was hiding behind. He'd forgotten she was the chief now; one of a dead tribe, but a chief nevertheless. In just three signs, she'd managed to turn their weakness into an advantage: the Qunari knew they were there now, but did not know where and how many. With the fog bombs thrown from shelter, they could pose for an entire tribe.

He crossed two perpendicular lines, _good,_ on her forearm, and she gave a minute nod. They silently slipped behind a large rock, lying in wait now, listening for the armoured feet to come closer. The Qunari had not dressed for ambush – they obviously had not expected any opposition in the tunnels.

But as the noise was drawing closer, Fenris felt his certainty leave him. He'd faced off many Qunari and Tal-Vashoth when they were in Kirkwall – even an army once – but the number of armoured boots he was hearing grew with every passing second. Asha's face was impassive, and he could feel she'd already made peace with dying. That was the way of the Fog Warriors. They could only hope that their disappearance will raise alarm in the morning –

 _But I can't die. I need to find Hawke._

He cursed his markings. If they hadn't flared up, perhaps the two of them could have still made it to the camp. Once more, his Tevinter branding would bring him trouble.

The first solders walked out of the opposite side of the crevasse. His armour echoed in the long way to the surface. He issued an order in Qunlat – a call for caution – and they proceeded, walking straight onto the rock where they were hiding.

Asha laid three fingers on his arm. _Three. Two. One…_ She yanked the fog bombs in the air and they exploded silently as always, filling his lungs with thick, almost-suffocating white smoke.

The Qunari started yelling something, but he didn't listen. He jumped out of the cover and, closing his eyes, let his instincts take over.

Two died instantaneously, their throats slit in one long slash of the sword. Fulga came alive in his hand, seemingly perfect for the weight and balance. He dodged a crippling blow from a sten and hatched to the side; it hit home, but too shallowly. The Qunari yelped in pain, but did not fall; half-turning, he sidestepped the enemy and plunged the blade deep between his shoulder blades. Now it was over, but there wasn't time to think; another three charged at him blindly, tipped off by the yell of their now-dead companion. He could hear more yells from where Asha was moving silently, only the slashing and stabbing heard around the small epicentre of chaos; she was changing her position with every kill, maiming and confusing them in the fog and darkness.

Pride and another, heavier emotion rose thick in his throat. _Fighting in the fog for the safety of the camp. Is this what you wanted for me, Hyruna?_ He spun, dodging another blow, this one faster and lighter – probably from an ashaad. This would be tougher – the Qunari seemed more aware of the space around him than the stens, avoiding Fenris' blade as if he were able to see it. He focused, stilled, compelling himself to make no sound at all-

The ashaad stilled too, seemingly confused. Fenris sidestepped his frozen defence and plunged the blade straight into his heart. _So they've been training their hearing…_

That made seven. Judging by Asha's silent, deadly advance, she'd felled at least as many. And yet the numbers did not seem to wane-

A pounding roar broke through the tunnel opposite them.

Fenris' blood turned to ice. _A sarebaas. They've brought a sarebaas down here._

He did not waste time, cutting through the breadth of the crevasse and abandoning all stealth. The mage was emerging from the other side, the destructive orb of energy already shining through the thick fog. If he could only get to him before it exploded-

Too slow.

He fell flat on the ground, crouching for shelter, pressing his ears. A splinter of a second later a deafening explosion shook the ground. The echoes rumbled on along the sharp cliffs of the precipice, and he could only hope that the Warriors would hear it and become alarmed.

The dust settled, and in the echoes of the explosion more Qunari troops marched into the crevasse.

 _Venhendis._ This wasn't just any bad luck, that was _Hawke's_ level of back luck. The two of them had walked straight into an invasion.

There was one more terrible effect of the sarebaas' explosion, and when he realised it, he sprang up and dropped inside a narrow crater. The Qunari around him seemed confused, but now _he could see them._ Meaning that, with the little of light that the distant speck of the sky was offering, they could see them too…

The fog floated back in, but too slow. He could see at least five stens charge in his direction before the smoke covered them again, and he'd barely managed to crawl out of the crater before he heard a terrible rattle of steel, and more Qunlat curses – meaning the Qunari had fallen into the hole. He slit their throats silently before their companions realised they were pulling out corpses. _I need to get to that sarebaas. Right now._

Then the sudden, mighty gush of wind blew from the direction of the mage, and – just like that – they were bare again. Asha stood just several feet from him, her eyes narrowed, her armour thoroughly covered in blood.

And the eyes of all the Qunari were on them.

 _Hawke-_

Asha's bloodied fingers smeared something on his skin. _Tunnels. Retreat._ Then she crouched and _ran_ – and he'd never seen a human move so fast before. Pushing them away, she ran straight to the entrance of the tunnel, and the only thing he could do was to follow. The Qunari closed their ranks, forming an unpassable barrier-

-and Asha gripped their shoulders, dodged the outstretched weapons, and, light as a jungle monkey, _somersaulted_ over them.

He just lit the lyrium and phased through.

They ran, pursuit hot on their heels, all pretence of stealth forgotten. His markings hot in his skin, he could feel the magic condensing behind them in the hands of the sarebaas. Hawke's staff was radiating heat on his back, but he ignored it.

"It's going to shoot, Asha," he panted, in as low a voice as he expected her to hear. Her face twisted.

"Let it do that."

"It'll bury us-" He trailed off, gasping both for breath and from the realisation. The explosion from the sarebaas wouldn't leave them alive. But it would also seal the tunnel.

"Asha, it won't save them! It'll-" _Only give them time. Until the next explosion clears the rubble again. The Fog Warriors would still meet the invasion, but they would at least meet it prepared._

She was ready to die for that. And he-

 _I have to find Hawke first._

The staff was slowly becoming hot enough to scorch through the leathers.

A mad plan formed into his head. He wasn't sure whether it would work, but it wasn't like they had much to lose – the Qunari yelling and noise of clattering steel were closing on them from behind –

"Get behind me, Asha."

"Wha-"

" _Get behind me._ "

She met his gaze. His heart twisted as he realised that this – right there – could be the end of the Coruscati. It was just the two of them-

He stopped his mad run abruptly, and she did too. Her hand smudged the last couple of taps and lines into his forearm, across the lines of lyrium.

 _I trust you, White Wolf._

He drew a long breath and closed his hand on Hawke's blistering staff.

 _Fire. Fire. Fire. Blinding fire, shooting high into the white sky in a blazing column of light._ His markings stood aflame, singeing painfully like they hadn't since the day he'd got them and lost everything else. But it was just energy – his energy – _her energy –_ and he knew it just as well as he knew her –

 _the blazing inferno in his hands, the swirling firestorm, white-hot and purified until there's nothing but light- a lightning-_

 _-but – controlled._

His vision turned blood-red as the light started seeping through his shut eyelids. With every move burning the lyrium deeper into his skin, hot agony spreading to every inch of his body, he grasped the fire with his bare hands-

And he let go of the lightning.

There was nothing but white shine and deafening noise. It knocked them down, back to the end of the tunnel, breathless, his hands felt like liquid iron, flesh burning alive-

"Fenris!", he heard Asha scream, and before his head knocked against the stone, he remembered one more thing: to close his hands on Hawke's staff so hard that no-one would be able to wrench it away.

Then the darkness closed over his head.

-/-

He woke up in Asha's tent.

The furs were familiar now. His skin felt unpleasantly sensitive, in a way that brought in mind the first weeks after the lyrium had been poured into his markings. And Hawke's staff was lying at his side, calm and cold. Whatever link to her mind it was offering, it was closed shut now.

 _Where are you, Hawke? How are you doing that?_

 _How did_ I _do that?_

He sat up – his head spun at that, but he'd felt worse – and looked out of the tent. The camp outside seemed less like its former self, and much more like the ones he'd seen in the jungle before; the warriors walking around the fires were fully armed, wearing their white face paint. It wasn't peacetime anymore. The tribes were readying for the invasion.

He felt an intent glance fixed on him, and turned his head to look. A black-haired little girl, no older than six or seven, was staring at him from the side of the tent. Her ashen-coloured skin was peppered with white stains, as if she'd been trying to put the war paint on, and a doting mother did not have the time to wash it thoroughly enough – possibly because she'd been busy putting it on herself.

When the girl realised Fenris was staring back, she unashamedly held his gaze.

"You're the Warrior Who Wielded Lightning," she said matter-of-factly, a certain level of interest in her voice. "The dancers said you're the one who killed all those Qunari at once down in the chasm. Did you?"

Fenris blinked. But the girl very clearly meant business. "I think so."

The girl eyed him up sceptically. "You don't look like a Warrior Who Wielded Lightning."

"Why not?"

"You're too old," she said, gesturing pointedly at his hair. He felt his lips curve despite himself.

"That's not a very nice thing to say."

"It's true though," she pointed out, and he reigned in a chuckle. A typical Seheron kid. Asha used to be very similar, once.

"Do you know who Asha is?"

The girl made a face. "Everybody knows who Asha is. She's with the dancers. They're talking about you."

Now his curiosity was piqued, and he sat down at the entrance of the tent, on the full onslaught of the girl's keen green eyes. "What does everybody know?"

"She's a _Coruscati._ You're a Coruscati, too. And there aren't any more."

His smile was snuffed out. "Do you know why?"

But the girl's expression did not change, and once more Fenris remembered that there were no taboos, no secrets in Seheron. "You killed them when you were still a slave. But you came back, and now you're free, so you're saving us. Everybody thinks you're the Warrior Who Wielded Lightning."

He stared at her in silence. _This island. These people. These unimaginable people._ The girl returned the gaze for a moment; then, bored, turned to tap the rhythms of a tribal song against the tent pole.

"Are you afraid of me?" he managed finally.

The girl laughed, an open, giggly sound. "No, silly. You're too old. My mum can kick your butt."

"Verra! Stop bothering the Warrior." A tall, slender woman with the war paint fresh on her cheeks – the mother, Fenris deducted – walked towards them and easily snatched the girl off the ground. No easy feat, as the kid would be already way past being carried off like a newborn, but the Fog Warriors seemed made of muscle. The woman did not seem perturbed, however; she flashed a white-toothed, honest smile. "Sorry, White Wolf. The brat wants to get friends in high places."

Fenris looked up to her. Even if he stood up, she'd be markedly taller than him. _Friends in high places, huh?_

"Where can I find Asha?"

Understanding flashed in her eyes, green as her daughter's. But Verra interrupted her before she could say a word:

"I told him. She's with the dancers! Why doesn't he listen?"

He gave a short nod, and the woman smiled at him again.

"My name is Ulda, and this is Verra. Of the Silvangali. Thank you, White Wolf. We'll fight together tonight."

Fenris watched them walk away, Verra still staring at him over her mother's shoulder. Something warm and confusing pressed on his chest from the inside.

 _So… I saved them?_

He grabbed Hawke's staff and walked out of the tent, crossing the camp along the way to the dancers' cave. And as he strode, eyes were turning to him - he'd half expected whispers and averted gazes – but nods, calls, and warm greetings followed him until the edge of the camp. It was felt in equal measures awkward and stunning.

 _I am not your hero._ But they had all known what he'd done, even the children. And yet – and yet –

What was it in Asha's face when he asked about Hyruna's purpose? He recalled the tale Verra was talking about, one about the warrior that saddled the Tempest Cloud to battle and wielded the Lightning as a sword. It was painted on the dark basalt rock of the cave, an old fleeting myth pinned to stone. No more, just a myth. But once he'd thought so about the Witch of the Wilds…

He could hear the conversation from the fog dancers' cavern long before he saw the flickering fire's red reflections on the rocks.

"We don't know how much structural damage the lightning had done. We could become trapped in the tunnels ourselves."

"I agree. But that doesn't mean we should now wait for the Qunari to come to us."

"We'll send scouts first, then the tribes. Before they arrive, we should be able to hide a group in every corner."

"For tonight, yes," he could hear Asha's voice say. "But this won't make us safe in the long run. We shouldn't plan to bar them, we should plan to make them unable to come here in the first place."

"Asha…" There was tiredness in the dancer's voice. Fenris recognised the man as the one to make decision about him before. "We don't have the gaatlok. And as long as they bring a sarebaas, they'll just blast their way back in. They know we're here now. We need to relocate."

"No, we don't. Our children have lived there in safety, why would you take it away from them?" Asha sounded frustrated, but she kept it well at bay – as well as a Fog Warrior could.

"Because they, too, will take part in this war," said a dancer that had been silent until now. "There is no safety in Seheron. The past ten years could seem like a long time for you, Asha, because it's half your life – but for us it was barely a pause in the war. We all knew it would end."

"It doesn't have to."

Fenris slipped inside the cave. Even though his approach was silent, the eyes of all the dancers – and Asha – turned to him.

"White Wolf," greeted him the first dancer, the one that spoke to Asha first. "You won us a battle. Sit with us as we plan another."

He stayed on his feet, hesitant. Asha gestured at him impatiently.

"What's wrong?"

"Am I… what they say I am?" It sounded pathetic, and he hated the sound of it as soon as it left his mouth.

"Are you the Warrior Who Wielded Lightning, you mean?" The first dancer's eyes twinkled. "You're a Fog Warrior, and you have wielded a lightning in a battle gloriously won. Yes, White Wolf. This is what you are."

 _You are a Fog Warrior._ Simple statement, just a matter-of-fact reminder. That was the way. And yet his heart swelled, and he opened his mouth to ask, to thank, to-

" _Shame,_ Rilus," said another dancer. "Why disrespect the memory of Hyruna Long Shadow by hollowing out his prophecy like that?"

Dancer Rilus shook his head. "I don't doubt the prophecy. I just believe-"

"My father _knew,_ Fenris," Asha interrupted them, and all eyes turned to her again. "He took you, and he loved you, and he gave everything he could to make you free so one day you would make _us_ free. And you did. And you will again, I _know_ that."

" _What?_ "

"Hyruna looked for the signs in the fog," said the same dancer that criticised Rilus. "And he knew our history well. Don't you remember, companions? The story of the Warrior Who Wielded Lightning?"

"We remember. Does _he_ remember?"

That was a ritual. He barely recalled the way it went… but there was an acclamation, a question, an answer, a story freely given… -but _what?_ Asha's words still had him reeling. Hyruna had known, and there was a purpose – like she'd said deep in the tunnels, the blood he'd spilt was his bloodright, sunken into the earth of Seheron, breathed out by the trees in the shape of the fog, and _calling…_

"He remembers," he said, his voice hazy. "But he would hear it again so it lives on."

The dancers nodded, satisfied. One of them stood. "We don't have the time for the full story, White Wolf, but here's for you to pass on: a warrior came to the tribe, and he knew fight but he did not know freedom. So the tribe has taught him freedom, and the warrior taught them the fight. And as the warrior went away, he said…"

"… he said, 'I will return'," continued another fog dancer. He bowed to the first, and they began to slowly circle the fire, one opposite the other. Fenris' heart picked up the pace as the fog dance began to unravel a story that was meant to be _his._ "'When the freedom is at risk at the tribe, I will come and fight for it'. And so the warrior went away, and roamed the earth and sky, learning the secrets of the fight from the four winds and ten seas."

Another joined them. Asha sat in there, eyes fixated on him, but he found he couldn't peel his own from the dancers. "… ten seas. But then a wild bird of prey found the warrior in a faraway land, and she said: 'Return, because your tribe is in peril'. So he ran by day and by night, never stopping, until he found a Tempest Cloud…"

"… a Tempest Cloud, and he fought with the Tempest Cloud until it let him straddle him like a mount, and it obeyed his every word. But the Tempest Cloud was wicked even when it was subdued, so it offered the warrior a Lightning, knowing that he would be killed…"

"… be killed by the Lightning when it touched him. But when he closed his hand on the Lightning, she knew her master in him, because he had learnt the secrets of the four winds and ten seas."

"… ten seas. So the warrior arrived, and when he saw the foe of the tribe, he was livid with fury. And he dived down on the Tempest Cloud and struck them with the Lightning he wielded as a sword, and they dispersed and died, and the ten seas rose to drown them. The tribe cheered, knowing that their freedom was complete. And the meaning in the fog is…?"

The dance around the fire stopped. Everyone was looking at Fenris. He just stood there, dumbstruck. Even though he'd thought otherwise, he'd forgotten so much-

"Fight is only worthy when there is something to fight for," said Asha quietly, closing the ceremony.

The dancers sat down.

"My father believed you were the Warrior Who Wielded Lightning, Fenris. And you proved him right tonight."

Fenris shook his head helplessly. "I- I don't wield lightning, Asha. This has nothing to do with me. I'm not your hero."

"It doesn't matter," Rilus said. "You saved us from the first attack, legend or no legend. And now we need to make plans to protect the camp for as long as we can-"

"We're _not_ leaving, dancer Rilus!" There was no aggression in Asha's voice - just finality. Some of the other dancers nodded to that. "You said we don't have gaatlok, but we have something better than that. We have our White Wolf."

"I can't do it on a whim, Asha!" Fenris raised the staff in front of him like proof. "The Champion… this is her power. I am just channelling it when it's spilling out. I don't even know how. You need the Champion, not me."

"Then we just wait for the opportunity," she said, and again some of the dancers nodded.

But the others were shaking their heads. "And what about the sarebaas? They can just clear the rubble and start it over."

"Not if we make the entire mountain the rubble." Asha's eyes were glimmering. "We can do it. We can keep out home safe. This is what we were promised."

"Asha. They _know_ we are here now." Rilus took her arm and tapped a quick message on it, _listen._ The equivalent of Fog Warrior gesticulation. "Can you imagine the Qunari ever stop trying?"

Silence fell around the bonfire.

"What do _you_ think, White Wolf?" asked the same dancer who had before scolded Rilus for disrespecting the prophecy. "You saved us once. Perhaps you should be the one to decide tonight. We can leave and return to being nomads, or we can stay and fight the losing battle. What is your counsel on it?"

Fenris thought about little Verra, proud and unafraid in the midst of the white-painted warriors. The war would always find a way into their lives. But how, and when…

 _What would Hawke do?_

That was almost too easy. He remembered a conversation they'd had, right in the middle of the Qunari invasion, straight before she'd jumped onto the Arishok and demanded a duel. He'd suggested leaving the city, asking for aid in Starkhaven, Tantervale, Ostwick… She'd got angry at him. She'd get angry for even trying to suggest that there would be no way out to save her city…

And she'd found a way, even though it seemed impossible and he was ready to move on. She'd almost died in the process, but she'd found a way.

He clenched his hand around her staff. _I need to find you, Hawke. This is your kind of situation. But in the meantime…_

"Stay," he said, and Asha's eyes lit up. "I'll fight with you. I'll do whatever I can to slow the Qunari down. But we need to find the Champion."

They all looked at him. And it wasn't a look of doubt, or annoyance. They listened. They… _they treated him like one of their own, equal in word and deed._

Fog Warriors didn't hide or repress their feelings. Their respect was real.

Rilus nodded, a sad smile on his face. "If there will be a legend out of this, and I'm sure it will," he said, a strange mixture of amusement and regret in his voice, "it will be called, 'The Siege of Seheron'."

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Man, that was a handful. I sure hope I will continue to be able to churn out new chapters as quickly as this one got born, although it *is* much easier when you finally know exactly where you're going with the story. Should've tried it ages ago.

In other news, juggling the difference between how Fenris approaches Hawke's absence and Hawke's grieving after him is emotionally exhausting. : and yes, if Seheron had the same Champion traditions as the Free Marches do, Fenris would be one by now.

AND YAY FOR ALL THE MADE-UP SEHERON LORE AND LITTLE BADASS WARRIOR KIDS


	26. Truth

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 10: Truth**

 **Chapter 10: Truth**

They stepped out of the Fade straight back into the hut. Solas dropped her at the rug with the unceremoniousness that belied all the gentleness of his previous gesture – she touched her face to make sure she wasn't imagining it – and walked out without a word. Hawke shivered, light-headed and strangely awake. The blood was still fresh and sticky on her face.

 _I pulled the sea. I called on the sea, and it obeyed me._

She felt drained, but it wasn't the overwhelming exhaustion that had crushed her in Amaranthine. It was an emptiness after a battle, the feeling after something was won.

She had won her magic back.

 _You will go into the sea,_ Solas had said. And she did. The ridiculousness of the situation made her smirk; a crippled hero learns new powers from a hermit in a deep forest. Varric would have a field day.

She realised that was her first thought about the outside world in weeks.

It was time to go. She thought about Jainen, and about the Queen headed there to investigate the broken Circle; it was time to stop hiding in the woods, and go be a Champion again until they were still mages – and Ferelden – to save. And then there was also the matter of pursuit… The fires they'd seen at the coast were Warden scouts for sure. It was only a matter of time until they'd find her here – and for the first time in weeks, she recalled the flaming Chantry in Forthing, and considered the consequences.

The world was still out there, and Maker only knows what she'd missed. _Again._

But before she'd go out there, there was one more matter to close.

Solas' favour.

 _Asking will kill me? Or the favour? - Yes. - Which of them? - One._ The more she thought about this exchange, the more ominous it seemed. And it was obvious how drawn he was to her power, how important it was for him to see her reclaim it. It was somehow all connected – his weakness, his _too long a dream,_ his desperation at how the world seemed to have changed, his inhuman nature... He could just be an old abomination, of the kind that Zathrian the Keeper was, back in Brecilian, if the tales of the Hero of Ferelden were true. But then why would the story of an elven civilisation be painted on the walls of his hut? What kind of absolution, what kind of retraction of a historical lie was he seeking? _What was his story?_

Hawke didn't harbour any illusions as to the real nature of their relationship. The flirting and teasing aside, Solas had proven again and again that although he was willing to act a friend, and perhaps even be one – to a certain extent – ultimately he saw her as no more than a means to an end. And whether the end was to heal, or to reclaim power, or to simply work through some tremendous hurt that haunted them both… they were both useful to one another. There was no telling of what he would do once the usefulness reached its end.

And yet – and yet – there were moments where she could see him at his most vulnerable, and the truth was spilling out from the cracks in his mask, and what she'd come to understand about Solas was that if he hadn't wished it to show, it wouldn't have shown. His grief mirrored her own too closely. And despite all his denigrating attitude and casual reminders how much of a child she was compared his wealth of age and experience, she could sense that she hadbecomeimportant to him – perhaps despite himself.

He had heated the pond for her. And let the dog in when she'd been having a nightmare…

 _Distractions. Each other's distractions._

She didn't know how long she lied, musing about it, but only Solas' soft steps pulled her out of her contemplation. He slipped into the hut silently, holding an earthen bowl in his hands, and kneeled at her side.

"Drink."

She only realised how thirsty she was in the moment the water touched her lips. It was cold and fresh, with a twinge of healing herbs he must have gathered in the forest. A moment of meditation, perhaps, something to slow down the tumbling cascade of breakthroughs that this night had become; it was _too quick,_ he'd said.

He helped her put the bowl down and, wetting a rag, brought it to her face. She cringed, expecting a freezing bite of the ice-cold water, but the rag was already warm – she didn't even notice him cast the spell. Solas' soft hands wiped the dried bloodstains from her face and neck.

She closed her eyes. _What was that about distractions?_ "Thank you, Solas."

"When you arrived in Kirkwall," he said, voice low - it felt more like she was _feeling_ , not hearing it - "what kind of world did you expect to create?"

It felt like a random question. It wasn't. Not one question Solas had asked her was random, even though she couldn't see the pattern yet. "I wasn't… searching to create anything. Not really. I just struggled to survive."

"So you weren't even aware. You gave away your power of change to blind chance. Or was it love for your golden-haired healer? Is that why?"

"Why are you asking me this, Solas?" The last time they talked about it had been in the pond, and it had not ended well.

"You shook the world," he said, and there was a grave heaviness to it. "You uprooted it, and you remade it, either by action or inaction. But the change you've wrought was for the worse."

A cold shiver went through her. This wasn't about her. "I don't understand."

"You don't need to."

"Damn right I do. I'm not your mirror to speak at. And this is impo-"

"Tell me, Hawke," he continued, as if he hadn't heard her, his voice still carrying the quiet intensity. "If you had a chance to bring the world back to what it was, to regain what was lost, to save the lives of your people, by any cost necessary, by any amount of blood – would you do that?

Two heartbeats were all that was necessary. _Fenris._ "Yes."

"Then you will understand in time."

 _And before your time comes and the sky is torn asunder, you will need me again._ The spirit of Faith's prophecy when it healed her. It sounded more and more ominous by the second. She brought his hands down from her face, squeezing hard on his wrist to feel the now-familiar slow rhythm. His face was open and laced with heavy emotion, his eyes shining. He did not try to pull away; instead, he shifted so now they kneeled opposite each other, faces close.

"I'm sick of all of those understatements and obliques, Solas. Cards on the table. You promised me one true answer."

His expression did not change when he gave one slow nod. _Maker, he's actually going to get through with this._

"Ask wisely, Champion. You cannot unlearn the truth once you've found it."

Hawke felt her stomach knot in half-nervous, half-excited expectation. _There is one key to it all. I can play this right._ Her eyes became unfocused; behind him, the paintings around the walls of the hut were glimmering in the shadows, one story, one glimmering pale-blue line… until the door.

"What did the wolf do?"

Solas' expression told her it was the right one.

-/-

They were kneeling on the floor against each other, faces close, her hands squeezing his wrist. And Solas' eyes – that was no illusion – flashed green, green like the orb in his pouch, green like venom, green like a wolf's eyes in the night –

 _What did the wolf do?_

"He shattered the world."

"Was it because he cut the line?" Hawke could see it from where she sat, even in the dark. An unbroken blue line, from the one side of circular history to another, until it finally came to the wolf. The howling, tortured creature, breaking the world order…

"You misunderstand, Champion. Once the world was whole, and the People roamed it freely. It was ridden with injustice and games of power played on the expense of the lowly, but it was whole."

"And the wolf has-"

"He hasn't broken the line, Champion. He has created it."

Her head spun. _What. What could he be possibly talking about?_ A story of immeasurable grandness opened straight under this tale, but she didn't quite understand what he was referring to-

"Why?"

"It was the only way to bring freedom," he said softly. "To choose your own rights and wrongs, without those who would have you mindless. Where the People would be the makers of their own mistakes."

"Is that a legend? A myth? Or is it true?"

"Are you a legend, Champion? Are you true?"

"I'm not a legend."

"In time, you'll become one. A hero who tore down the order of the old world, paving the way of war and death, until all your good intentions have been forgotten in the chaos you've made." It felt like another prophecy, one about Kirkwall and the crumbling world, and it made her sick in the stomach. But then-

"What did you do, Solas?"

He hesitated. The air became thick with power, as if his emotions couldn't be contained within his body and flowed out, like a shine of a comet on the starless sky, burning bright, powerful, and _infinitely lonely._

"I… made a mistake. It led to death."

 _Not: a death, or deaths. Death._ Aedale squeezed his wrists even tighter, thinking about the list of the dead under her tunic, and his hands moved under hers, upward and on until he grasped her shoulders, and it felt like they were back in the pond-

 _No being, no matter how old, how young, how broken, deserves to be alone._

 _Me paenitat, my love-_

"Me too," she breathed, and suddenly his mouth was on hers.

-/-

In the middle of the night, in the cavern deep within the volcanic rocks of the island, Fenris stirred restlessly in his shallow sleep.

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is messed up. I'm messed up. THESE TWO ARE MESSED UP.


	27. Siege of Seheron, Intermission

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 11: Siege of Seheron, Intermission**

The Siege of Seheron.

It turned out to be a good name.

Just like the dancers had predicted, the Qunari returned in the night. But they drove them back again, and again, and again, until the basalt rock was flooded with blood. They breathed the fog until Fenris forgot there ever was clean air in his lungs, and that the world was ever any other colour than black, white, and red.

He wore their war paint and became indistinguishable in the fog, a white spectre in the caves clouding with smoke. _Just like Hyruna told him he would._ After the first day, he stopped flinching when the hands of the other warriors tapped messages on his skin, and became forced to reach out and do the same. And after every Qunari was dead, they would come back out, wash off the white pigment, reveal their ashen skin, tend to the wounded, count the dead-

The Fog Warriors did not grieve. War was their forge, and their element. But this time, they fought for something worth protecting – the one piece of land they had for their own.

The scouts returned from the jungle every day - without the Champion of Kirkwall. Her staff remained cold, and Fenris grew worried.

 _Where are you, Hawke?_

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is literally just a scrap that did not fit into either the last chapter or the next. As today has been pretty tiring, I feel like this is adequately reflecting my current mood. We'll get back to the proper storytelling tomorrow. In the meantime, though... g'night.


	28. The Queen and the Storyteller

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 12: The Queen and the Storyteller**

 **DISCLAIMER: This chapter includes neither Fenris nor Hawke. However, it is important for the story, setting up an important payoff, so I recommend you read it anyway - if only for their interactions to have due weight later. Another long-awaited character will make an appearance, though...**

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The Warden standing in front of Nathaniel seemed sheepish and very, very uncomfortable. He could have sworn she'd lost a draw to bring in the bad news. Unfortunately, the sympathy wasn't enough to make him less furious.

"What do you _mean_ you saw the Champion of Kirkwall?"

"We were patrolling the shore, Captain. It was in the night, nothing showed up for weeks… Then we heard a voice west from the cave, and then-" The Warden stuttered. "We heard the stories, Captain, about the Champion raising the sea. It was like that. I know it sounds mad, but the sea… just stood up. Like a wall."

Nathaniel could feel the headache starting at the back of his head. The _stories_ from Amaranthine were bad enough, considering the bad legend Hawke seemed to be gaining fast. The last thing they needed was a scary story about an unhinged overpowered mage on their shores. They'd barely lived through the Forthing fire… He knew for a fact that she had, in fact, pulled the tide to put out the fire on the ship; but she had been comatose after that, barely alive. If the scout's account were true – if – it was disconcerting that any mage, let alone the Champion of the still-burning Kirkwall from where the chaos was radiating on the entire Thedas, would make that swift an advance.

And there was, of course, the matter of Hawke popping up this close to the red lyrium.

"And you haven't managed to find her?"

"There was a trace, Captain. It started out of thin air at the beach, led to the rocks, and vanished."

Nathaniel bit back a curse. Bloody mages.

"How close to the cave?"

"Not that close, Captain. But there was something else… _someone_ else. There were two traces. Hawke and an elf."

Nathaniel thought quickly about the first time he'd seen Hawke. The elf that had accompanied her was dead now, and it seemed that this was her primary reason to defy the Chantry and run away. Then again… no-one had seen the body…

"She can't be far. I want two search teams in the area and one along the coast. We need to find the Champion of Kirkwall before anybody else does, and _certainly_ before the Templars."

"Sir!" The Warden saluted sharply and disappeared, obviously relieved at having escaped unbruised. Nathaniel waited for her steps to fade away, and then punched the wall.

Hawke was playing with them.

Had he done the right thing, covering for her in Forthing? – There was one answer to that, and Nathaniel knew it. Letting the word spread out that yet _another_ mage attacked the Chantry would be the beginning of an end, an escalation of a problem that seemed worse day by day without any help. Just yesterday the new of the Hasmal Circle reached him; the mages, desperate for their lives as the Templars had invoked the Right of Annulment, turned to blood magic. The Templar Chapter of Hasmal was now non-existent, and the mages dispersed. Reports said they were fleeing northward, to Tevinter –

The chaos was spreading, coming closer and closer to the Ferelden borders.

He wondered, not for the first time this night, what was happening in Jainen. Claire wasn't writing back, and that was never a good sign. Effectively fifty percent of Fereldan mages were kept there, and should the Circle break, they would all feel the consequences… including a near-certain prediction of an Exalted March. It could still happen.

And then there was still the matter of Hawke's request, to grant the Marcher mages refuge in Ferelden… It still bore some political weight. Especially as Hawke herself was a Fereldan refugee, fleeing the Blight across the sea with thousands of others. In the end, the king and queen would have to decide whether to side with the Free Marches and at least attempt to solve the crisis diplomatically, or choose to support Orlais in their almost-certain crusade on Kirkwall and the other free cities…

He did not envy them.

The papers from Hasmal were still on his desk, smudged and rough – obviously written in great haste. And when Nathaniel was staring at them, trying to make sense of the mess they were both presenting and describing, there was a hurried noise on the corridor – and then a pointed silence…

His first reflex was to grab a knife. But then a tired chuckle reached his ears, in the voice he was expecting _the least._

"And then?"

"And then – I shit you not, your Majesty – he sprang out, naked as you please, and ran away from that dragon straight into the docks! Hawke had to fish him out with a crane."

The Hero of the Fifth Blight, Queen of Ferelden and the Warden-Commander of Amaranthine and Vigil's Keep Claire Cousland laughed earnestly at that. The door opened, and Nathaniel froze, knife in hand, at the sight of his commander flanked by the dwarf he'd managed to get to know _too well_ when they'd been staying in the keep.

"Nathaniel," said Claire, a leftover smile still pulling up the corner of her lip. He let out a long breath. Relief, frustration, surprise, and worry all fought for first place in his head.

"Why didn't you write?"

Varric raised an eyebrow at his coarseness. "Whoa, Smiley. Don't overheat yourself with all that warm welcome you're pulling out."

"Welcome back, Master Tethras." He didn't tear his eyes away from Claire, and she just shook her head. Her hair, he noticed almost despite himself, were messy and hastily braided; unlikely for the collected queen. Her smile slipped slowly, and he realised how tired she was under it.

"I didn't trust a raven with this news, Nathaniel. But the mage rebellion is here, in Ferelden. We're at war."

He sat back down.

 _Kirkwall, Ansburg, Hasmal, Ostwick. And now Jainen? Our Jainen?_ He made a sweeping gesture absent-mindedly, inviting them to sit down at the desk. For the second time for the last ten years, the world was turning upside down, and for the second time, Claire Cousland turned up to bear the news…

"What happened?

Varric cleared his throat. "I think I can take it from here. Your Majesty?"

The queen nodded, shrugging off the harness holding the blades on her back and settling down with a sigh. "Tell the story."

-/-

 _The Revered Mother of the Chantry in Jainen gave a serene smile as Varric sat in front of her. "Welcome, Master Tethras. We appreciate your donation to our church."_

" _Don't mention it, Mother. How are things in Jainen?"_

" _We're grateful for the peace that Maker has granted us in these troubled times," she said sweetly, and Varric couldn't tell whether it was a convincing lie, or whether the cleric honestly believed that was the case._

" _You're not getting nervous? So close to a Circle?"_

" _We're incredibly blessed with our Templars," she said, nodding at the symbol of the Sunburst Throne over his head. "They give us all the protection we need, both inside and outside the tower. I'm truly grateful to Andraste for the gift they are to Jainen."_

 _Varric nodded along. "Admirable. Sounds like they keep very busy. Have you spoken to the Knight-Commander lately?"_

 _A briefly focused expression floated through the cleric's serene face. "No, not per se, Master Tethras. They do indeed keep very busy."_

" _Really? When was the last time you spoke to him?"_

" _That would be the blessings of Summerday, I believe. That was a good time for the community. We don't get that much good weather here at the coast, and when we do, it doesn't usually coincide with the festivities, but last summer was especially charming. You would have loved it here, Master Tethras. It's a shame that you've only arrived now."_

 _Damn right it's a shame, thought Varric. It was winter now. And if what she was saying was true, the idiot cleric had not spoken to the templars in the tower ever since._

" _Maybe next time, Mother. Thank you for welcoming me in Jainen, appreciate it."_

" _I will say a prayer for you, Master Tethras. Thank you again for your generosity." The cleric sent him yet another serene smile as he stood up and, nodding at her absent-mindedly, left the room. He started walking along the Chantry corridors, face intentionally bland as if he weren't just cursing the Revered Mother's naiveté under his breath-_

" _You won't get anything out of her, Varric Tethras. She's an idiot. A harmless, adorable idiot, but an idiot nevertheless." A tall rouge with a hood hiding her face stood on his way from absolute nowhere._

 _He narrowed his eyes. It was broad daylight. These things tended not to happen until nightfall... unless the rouge somehow felt comfortable enough to stand like that in full view, knowing full well she had the right._

" _That is damn accurate, shady lady. Who is really in charge here? And whose hand do I have to grease next to get to them?"_

" _Good question." There was a flash of white teeth revealed in a smile as the hood slipped up. "My money is on the Knight-Commander himself."_

 _Varric snorted. "What? You're not going to be like, 'I have an idea,' and leave me a cryptic message to meet you here at midnight with a sack of gold on hand? Let me tell you, Knifey, you're not playing this whole disguise vibe right."_

" _Knifey?" There was a very clear tone of dignified incredulity behind the hood._

" _Well, yeah. You have knives. Knifey. Can't let the nicknames get too creative, else I'll never remember them."_

 _The rouge sighed. "You live up to your reputation, Varric Tethras. I believe we have a similar objective. Shall we head to the tavern and talk about it?"_

" _Sure, your Majesty. Whatever floats your boat."_

 _The hood stuttered. "How- how did you know?!"_

" _Well, there was this whole correspondence thing with your right hand man Smiley in the Keep, and some of that correspondence might have been less confidential than you would have thought… but really, next time, you might want to switch out your blades." Varric pointed out the distinctly Warden crest at the hilts. For a second, he would have sworn the Queen of Ferelden blushed._

" _In any case, let's go," she said. "I have a feeling that we have a lot to discuss."_

"I did _not_ blush, Varric." Claire fixed her eyes pointedly on Nathaniel, daring him to protest. He couldn't help but smirk, useless as the story had been so far.

"This is the beauty of storytelling, your Majesty. You get the point across, and I get to brag I made the Hero of Ferelden blush. Humour me."

"In any case," she said, cutting him off, "when we met at the Chantry, we had both had the same experience with the Revered Mother. After discussing several things of interest, we decided to get to the Circle together. You can continue now, Varric."

"You ever get told you're a control freak, Knifey?"

"Constantly. It's a part of a job. Continue."

 _The queen's money was on the Knight-Commander running things. The solution seemed simple enough: get into the tower, find the Knight-Commander, assess the situation and whatever problem had arisen within the Circle. There was only one problem._

 _No-one has seen the Templars for weeks. The tower stood shut and lifeless on a small island off the coast, with no sign of life even in the night._

" _I have to say, Knifey," said Varric as he was pulling the oars, the queen eyeing the tower carefully, "would've thought that someone at your power level wouldn't need to_ steal _rowboats."_

" _If I wanted to make my presence known like that, I would have just blown the horn on arrival."_

" _But you didn't. How are you even allowed to cross the country on your own? You're the nuggin' queen."_

" _Because I'm the nuggin' queen, Varric."_

" _Point taken."_

" _Besides, you would of course understand the need for… subtlety here. My father's generation drove the Orlesians out of Ferelden. This will not become their excuse to swoop back in."_

" _What exactly are you expecting to find in this tower?"_

" _Trouble," said Claire and jumped off the boat before it even reached the pier._

 _The island was morbidly quiet in the night, and Varric began to feel a little bit uneasy. They walked closer to the tower, weapons discreetly drawn, and approached the heavy door – made obviously as much for keeping intruders out as for containing the mages in._

 _The queen touched her head, wincing. "This brings out unpleasant memories."_

" _You can say that again, Knifey."_

 _Claire banged on the gate. There was no echo, no sound stirring inside._

" _Your queen commands you to open the door," she said loud and clear, a tone of absolute unyielding authority in her voice. "Ferelden commands you to open. In the name of house Cousland, open."_

 _Nothing. Varric raised an eyebrow._

" _Has it ever worked on an empty building?"_

 _She ignored him. "In the name of house Theirin,_ open. _"_

 _And – the gate stirred, clicked, and with the sound of creaking hinges of any ominous door in Thedas, it split open, revealing gaping darkness inside._

" _Well, I'll be nug's uncle. How did it do that?"_

" _The line of Calenhad," she said curtly, lighting a torch. "Slightly ironic how the best thing I've ever done for Ferelden was marrying Alistair."_

Claire rolled her eyes. "Don't repeat that to him, please. His head is big enough as it is."

"I'm just quoting."

 _The shivering flame of the torch was casting uneven shadows on the corridors. Varric was trotting along behind the queen, whose long strides were resounding under high ceilings. She was squeezing her temples restlessly, as if something were pounding on them from the inside._

" _You okay, Knifey?"_

" _Varric," she said, her back still turned at him, "are you hearing this?"_

" _No. But I'm a dwarf, and this shit smells like magic. So think of it whatever you like."_

" _I've been hearing it ever since I arrived to Jainen. But this is the loudest yet. Maybe the Knight-Commander won't have the answers here, but I think this tower will."_

" _It's dead quiet though. You got any more of those Calenhad tricks up your sleeve to make them come out?"_

" _Sadly, people are toughe-"_

 _A red shine materialised in the air, and with a deafening crack a rage demon tore through the Veil in front of them. Before it closed, more shades slipped out through the rift-_

 _but before he managed to even aim Bianca at them, the flurry of movement descended onto demons, slashing them methodically to the choir of hellish shrieks. And in that moment he was forcibly reminded that even though Claire Cousland was of noble birth and upbringing, it wasn't her lineage nor diplomatic skill that made her the queen._

 _No. That would be single-handedly defeating the Blight._

 _She wiped the blades meticulously before putting them back in the sheaths. "I don't know much about magic, but the Veil being so thin that demons pull through does not bode well."_

" _Understatement of the ages," muttered Varric under his breath._

" _Let's go." And, stepping over the quickly-evaporating corpses of demons, she walked on._

 _Despite the fact that they walked the main corridors, there was no sign of life anywhere – and if Claire's widening grimace were to be any indication, the whispers were also getting louder. It seemed as if – somehow – all the mages and templars residing in the tower had disappeared, leaving everything behind._

 _They were crossing the circular library when Claire stopped at a seemingly random pulpit._

" _This was burning not long ago," she said, pointing at the candle attached to it. "See? There's got to be someone still alive in here. And reading. But there is no book, meaning they still felt the need to hide. Paranoid, or cautious?"_

" _You're awfully good at this, Knifey."_

" _This is not the first Circle I'm finding like this. Now the question is…" she said, raising her voice, "where are you, Knight-Commander?"_

 _Only silence was the answer, all the old tomes quietly lying in wait for anything and everything that was to happen._

 _And then a quiet rustle of steps as someone walked from in between the bookcases. Varric spun on his heel, Bianca cocked and read, expecting an ambush-_

 _-but it was just a city elf, small half-starved frame typical of his kind. He was holding an old leather tome with a red bookmark dangling out of it. Varric almost lowered his weapon before he realised the elf was wearing the Chantry insignia._

" _Wait._ You _'re the Knight-Commander?" he asked incredulously. But the elf ignored him._

" _The Queen of Ferelden, no less. Welcome, your Majesty. Searching for anything?"_

" _I could ask you the same question, Knight-Commander Ellis," said Claire coolly. "It seems to me that you've lost your mages. I'm told that's a grave offence in the Chantry."_

 _The elf waved a dismissive hand. "There are more important things for both you and I to worry about."_

" _Pray tell." Her eyes narrowed as the elf gave a smile._

" _I don't think so, your Majesty. See, I'm working for an authority that overrides yours."_

" _The Divine has no precedence over the royal prerogatives. You would do well to remember that before you defy a direct order."_

" _Oh, you mean the Divine!" He was laughing now, and judging by Claire's darkened eyes, she was having murderous thoughts. "No. Why take orders from a human anymore when you can serve a true god?"_

 _A fanatic, then. Varric aimed Bianca again, but Claire stopped him with a gesture. The woman had the restraint of a saint. "Where are the rest of the templars?"_

" _Someplace where they can't meddle."_

" _And the mages?"_

" _Why do you care? It's not like they're going to be alive much longer, with the Exalted March pointed our way."_

 _Claire did not change her expression. "Last question, Knight-Commander. What are you holding?"_

 _The elf raised the tome up to his eyes, as if he had forgotten he'd been clutching it. "Ah, this old thing? Maps. Jainen's not really useful as a Circle, but at least the stone is really ancient. And you know that, your Majesty, of course, because you called in old Calenhad's favour. They really don't care what they're slapping architecture on these days, do they?"_

 _There was a quick flutter of the air – and only after a long second Varric realised that a knife had flown from Claire's grasp straight into the elf. But it never reached home. Knight-Commander Ellis reached for a horn at his side, a manic smile still plastered all over his face-_

" _Don't let him sound it!" yelled Claire, and Bianca's shot flurried through the air just a splinter of a second too late._

 _At the deep sound of the signal, blood-red abominations stared pouring in from the open corridors. Claire's blades were out in a millisecond, and Varric retreated between the shelves, taking careful aim at the Knight-Commander, who in the middle of all that chaos was just calmly headed for the pulpit-_

 _He shot him right between the shoulder blades. Or so he thought. The sudden blast emanating from the turned Templar shook the room, and the elf emerged from the blinding white, gripping a sword. Varric leapt to the side, dodging another blast…_

"He killed him," interrupted the queen again, and Varric shot her a wounded look. "In the meantime, I cleared out the abominations, and they weren't normal, Nathaniel. They were _red,_ and infused with something powerful. And they didn't explode either. I don't think there was any spirit bound to them. I could be wrong, of course, and I would like an informed opinion on that, but in the way they fought, these things were more like darkspawn than actual abominations."

Varric cleared his throat, but they ignored him.

"Have you got my letter, Claire?" asked Nathaniel, shuffling the paperwork on his desk in search for the right report.

"The one on strange lyrium? Yes. Do you think there is a correlation?"

" _As I was saying,_ " said Varric, overpronouncing every word, "you might find it interesting to listen to the rest of the story."

"Varric. I lived it. Then we talked about it on the way here. I'm sorry to offend your storyteller sensibilities, but there are matters of national security to be discussed here."

"Red. Lyrium."

That gave them pause. The two humans stared at him in silence, and Varric prolonged it for a second before continuing.

"I've seen this before. Shit, I brought it to the surface. And the madness of the elfy templar there was very similar to Meredith, which means there _definitely_ is a correlation."

"There's more than that," said Nathaniel. "Claire, I didn't tell you that before, but it… whispers. In the same way as the darkspawn do."

The queen paled. "I thought that was the beginning of my Calling in that tower."

"No. I heard it too, in the cave. It definitely whispers."

"Well, shit. Now you two are ready to listen to me?"

The Wardens exchanged glances. Finally, the queen nodded. "Go ahead, Varric. But please, stick to the backbone of the story."

"Sure thing."

 _The elf was dead. Well, almost. Even though he was skewered with so many bolts he looked like a porcupine, his fingers were still twitching as Varric approached him._

" _Down… the Roads… they sleep…" he coughed out. "In uthenera… na… revas."_

 _There was red shine under his uniform as he let out his last breath._

"Deep Roads? So… it was all so he could open a passage from Jainen to the Deep Roads?" asked Nathaniel. "It's an old part of Ferelden. The tower island used to be part of the continent, too. Before the sea broke in."

"And he probably found more of that damned red lyrium there. Now, with all you're saying about it whispering like the Blight…" Varric was visibly worried. "And here I thought that you literally _couldn't_ make this shit any worse."

"Jainen's founding stone is ancient. No-one really knows what's under the tower and how deep it runs, but it's not safe to get in there. The outward tunnels were flooded long ago, but even by then, the darkspawn seemed to avoid the place. We do not know why."

"Well, it seemed that there are some fanatics that do," said Nathaniel grimly. "We should investigate the connections of the Knight-Commander. See how he'd got the information he had"

"There's still one more thing that doesn't make sense in this story," said Claire. "Knight-Commander Ellis was with the Chantry since he was a child. He was one of the few elves that actually rose through the ranks, and he was pious enough that he was given an entire Tower of Magi to oversee. Why would he turn to fanaticism? What was that he said about taking orders from humans?"

"You ever think about racism, your Majesty?" said Varric.

Claire shot him a sharp glance. "Yes. Why?"

"Because I can't even imagine the depths of abuse that elven kid must have gone through to actually get somewhere in your Chantry. I don't think this _true god_ he mentioned was about the Maker. Cue the last thing he's ever said."

"Elvish?"

"El _vhen._ And yeah, most likely."

A long pause followed, one filled with some bitter recollection on the part of each person in the room.

"Nathaniel, you will open an investigation into Knight-Commander Ellis' connections and allies," said Claire finally. "Call off whatever Velanna is doing right now, she will oversee it. I'm passing all relevant authority onto her. You will cooperate, but I want you to focus on the issue of red lyrium exclusively."

He nodded curtly. "It shall be done, Claire."

"As for politics…" Her face darkened. "Jainen is done for. I personally killed most of the mages _and_ templars within it. It will take a while for the Divine to realise that the tower is empty, the idiot that she keeps in the local church, but once Orlais takes notice, they will assume the Right of Annulment was invoked. After that, I believe we are expecting an Exalted March."

"It had nothing to do with Kirkwall though," protested Nathaniel, but Claire's face did not change its grim expression. _There's still the matter of Kirkwall mages…_

"We don't know that. And the presence of red lyrium will not help our case."

"Claire, we can't lose Ferelden to that!"

"We won't, Nathaniel. We will use the time the ignorance of Jainen's cleric have granted us to figure out a way to protect the country. The information _cannot_ get out."

Her glance was fixed pointedly on Varric. The dwarf shrugged. "Hey. You're the one sending ravens left and right, not me."

"Irrelevant. I want you to get a message through to the Champion of Kirkwall, Varric." Claire's eyes were shining, and they were not kind. "Nathaniel has told me of her request to grant refuge to Kirkwall mages. In the light of recent events I have no choice but to deny it."

Varric's glance hardened. "You're sentencing them to death."

"I am _saving my country,_ Varric."

"By killing off thousands of innocent people!"

"Admitting mages would be a ticking bomb. And this is assuming the Champion would keep them under control. Which is, sadly, not very much, giving her record in Kirkwall…"

" _I told you_ what happened in Kirkwall. I gave you a first-hand account of how the Champion kept the city together for seven years! And should I remind you, your Majesty, _what_ rocked it in the first place? That's right, Fereldan refugees. Those that the Blight chased away from your country. And the Free Marches took them in."

"There's a difference between civilian refugees and mages-"

"Really? I can think of at least two mage refugees that ended up in Kirkwall. Hawke's one. And the other, let me think of it, wait-" Varric said with deep, caustic sarcasm, "hang on, that would be _Anders._ "

"Ferelden cannot _afford_ another war!" snapped Claire, and Nathaniel's eyes shot up. The queen's control over her own temper was legendary. "You think I _want_ to shut the borders on the needy? But this will set the country aflame _again,_ we'll have another invasion on our hands _again,_ and we just can't win it this time!"

"So you take no responsibility for the mages? None at all? Not even for Anders?"

The queen straightened on the chair, fire flashed in her eyes-

Then she deflated, slumped back in, the face of a leader dissolving into something tired and regretful. Silence stretched in the room, with Nathaniel waiting and Varric seething.

"This is not about fighting the battle for you, is it, Knifey? It's about caving to Orlesians before they even come. You're not even standing to the fight anymore, you just shut off your country and hope nothing gets through. Admit it, _Hero of Ferelden_. Ten years can change things, obviously."

"You need to learn _respect_ -" started Nathaniel angrily, but Claire cut him off.

"Yes. You're right." She brought her gaze down. "I am picking my battles. I am choosing the blood on my hands to protect something to which I have pledged my life. But this doesn't make this choice less evil… and perhaps I need someone to tell me that, every once in a while."

Heavy silence followed. Varric stood and bowed half-ironically, an impassive grimace on his face.

"One more thing, Varric, please-"

"To tell Hawke never to come back so you can blame everything on her, so that the Orlesian hounds can go after her scent and leave your precious country alone? Got it." He opened to the door, but before walking out, he looked the queen in the face one more time.

"Pleasure to meet you, Knifey. Wish I hadn't. We had fun, but you were better in my stories."

A bitter smile flashed on the Hero of Ferelden's face. "I'm sure I was."

 **-/-**

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: _Whoosh. I kinda feel bad for introducing Claire in such a shit manner. She's cool, I promise. But ten years leading a country changes you._

 _Also: this is canon divergence. Vastly. The codex entry on Ferelden after the Blight states clearly that "despite the events at Kirkwall, Ferelden continues to offer refuge to the rebel mages, which will only bring trouble to our doorsteps." I only found that out after the chapter had already been written out - for some reason I always thought that Redcliffe was the first sanctuary Ferelden offered. Maybe when Claire returns to Denerim, she and Alistair might or might not have a shouting match with the words "Fereldan refugees" and "our fault" and "why did you ever let this mage desert, he's got a history of running away" coming up fairly often, and then the borders will open... Alistair might have less diplomatic cunning than Claire, but that just means he relies on his heart more._

 _But this doesn't change the fact that I *could* have re-written the chapter if I wanted to. I didn't. As little as it might mean, the situation as portrayed here has a distinct political message that resonates with the Earth as well as Thedas._

 _See, I'm European. My country is one of the US allies that lent a hand to destabilise the Middle East, be it by sending soldiers or diplomatic support. It's also a country that, over the course of our history, had endured numerous invasions, disasters, diasporas, and countless acts of violence that sent thousands of refugees over the border. (Think of it as the Blight equivalent, but with Sweden/Prussia/Nazi Germany/Russia swooping in instead.) It would be absolutely obvious that, a relatively prosperous country that we are now, we would help along with the refugee crisis that is shaking up Europe lately. However, the populist government does not think this would be the case. My country's borders are closed to the refugees in the Syrian war - mostly because they're Muslim._

 _That I consider it morally reprehensive is one thing. That I can't even begin to fathom the depths of historical hipocrisy is another. But that our leaders would make those decisions, knowing full well that they are countless lives at stake, and that they are now over 5,000 people drowned in the Mediterranean in 2016 only... It sickens me. It makes me physically sick._

 _In 2017, it's important to remember that this story has always been about refugees. Hawke crossed the sea with nothing, fleeing war and destruction; Fenris ran from an oppressive regime abusing human rights, dogged by his traumatic past. Europe now is riddled with stories like that, stories that should never happen in our civilised world. The least I can do is publicly shame my leaders for doing what Claire Cousland has done here: turn their backs on those in need out of ill-conceived notion of safety - from the crisis they themselves have created._

 _Because they might have just killed our next Champion._

 _Go to Amnesty International, UNHCR, Doctors Without Borders, and Save the Children to find out how you can help._


	29. Truth, Revealed

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 8: Truth, Revealed**

 **Chapter 13: The Truth, Revealed**

 _This isn't healthy,_ the thought raced through Hawke's head as she slid her fingers across Solas' smooth cheeks, his mouth hot on hers, their taste like desperation, longing, and regret. _This is probably the least healthy thing I've ever done. Which is saying something._ His skin was feverish, even the marble-like lines of his scalp. She trailed a finger along his long, slender ear – something she'd remember from Fen _don't think it-_ and Solas bit back a moan, and maybe a half-pronounced elven curse. She couldn't keep track. The room seemed to be spinning-

But he understood. He understood the sickening, stomach-turning thought of doing irreparable damage, something that cannot be helped and cannot be fixed. He had been right; by allowing Anders to do his task, by actively _helping_ him, she'd shattered the world. And it led to deaths; Grand-Cleric Elthina, First Enchanter Orsino, Knight-Commander Meredith. All dead. And then, after the positions of power… people. Killed by the blast that had been made possible by her ingredients. The gentry of Hightown. Jean-Luc the dress seller.

And then…

Solas pushed her backwards. She fell on the rug, but not before dragging him down with her, a strange challenge in it; they tumbled down, a tangle of limbs and mouths, and she pushed him to get on top, but then he criss-crossed a rune on her neck and her arms suddenly became too heavy to move-

"You _cheater,_ " she panted under him, and he chuckled darkly.

"This from a human? Fight back, Champion."

 _Fight back._ She had. She had and it'd only led to more deaths. She'd fought back in Forthing, but she'd failed to save the herbalist – _the skull cracking open against the stone, he'd dead, just because of prejudice you've unleashed he's dead._ \- Then she'd fought back the prejudice, let go of the cleric, spared her, let understanding and compassion triumph over hatred –

\- and then –

 _The ship on fire. My staff! Fenris disappears under the board –_

\- he disappears –

She bit him on the neck, hard, hard enough to draw blood. She'd almost expected it to be black, like abomination's, but no – it was living, pulsating, red blood, tiny droplets rising to the surface in the shape of her teeth. Solas caught her face in his hands and bit her lip in retaliation, and she _knew_ that was going to swell. But it didn't, not just then. It just felt-

 _Not alive. But less dead inside._

His tribal necklace was pressing against her chest, thrumming with unknown enchantment. She drew on that energy, focused on its signature, and, pressing her tongue against his clavicle, marked a couple of simple lines. _You're not the only one capable with runes._

He shuddered.

"Not bad for a human, eh?"

Something like anger flashed in his eyes, and in an instant he was crushing her, tearing down her tunic and shoving his tongue down her throat. If the energy in the air was spilling before, now the dams were open, and his magic felt more like a relentless current, blinding her, making the entire hut spin, the blue line of history and the wolf whirling around them…

She reached out to stroke the line of lyrium along his jaw-

It wasn't there.

The shock of it almost made her cry out.

Solas stopped. He was watching her from above, pupils dilated, every inch the wolf she'd discovered him to be, whatever it meant.

"Hawke."

She stared at him, her hand still half-outstretched helplessly, searching to close on something that wasn't there.

 _That was never going to be there._

Her eyes filled with tears almost against her will. Her hand fell down limply, as if the string that had been holding it was suddenly cut loose.

Solas watched her for a long moment, his eyes following the spilling tears with strange keenness. Then he rolled over to the side, wiping the blood from his neck where she'd bitten him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered without thinking. Solas shook his head.

"Don't be childish, Hawke."

"I'm not. I'm sorry, I wanted this. I wanted you to feel less…" She trailed off. She'd wanted it as much for him as for herself.

"A noble sentiment," his voice was gentle. "Yet the execution strained you."

"I thought-" Speaking became impossible as the tight knot in her throat grew larger. She laid flat on her back, staring at the roof of the hut with blind eyes, trying to understand the despair that was coiling within her. _It was so much like Fenris. Like the first time. Desperation and anger and just trying not to be alone, and then – and then…_

Solas laid down at her side. He wasn't touching her, but the heat and magic still radiated from his skin.

"Tell me," he whispered in the dark, and in the corner of her eye she could see him stare at the ceiling too.

She let out a strained breath.

"I lost someone."

"How?"

"I-I don't-" She choked on her own voice, drowning in the thick, overwhelming emotions that had never really stopped being there, she'd just put a blanket over it, hid it with everyday activities and searching for her new powers and asking questions and wondering about Solas, she's been walking on the air this whole time, too afraid to look down-

Now she was falling.

" _How?_ " No pity. No mercy in his voice, just a question waiting to be answered.

"A-a ship was on fire," she stuttered. "A revenge. We w-were trying t-to… to put it down…"

"And?"

"I told him- it was my f-fault-"

"What was your fault, Hawke?"

"I t-told him to get my-my staff…"

It was like ripping out a thorn from inside her heart. It tore through muscles and bones through her ribcage in excruciating pain, but it was out there now. It needed to be out. She was openly crying now, wet, pathetic sobs getting long in the darkness of the hut.

"… and he died, S-Solas, he died b-because I… I told him to-"

He let her cry, curl up into a foetal position until her entire body was just a shivering ball of concentrated grief, closed and intense but _flowing out._ He was dead, dead, not coming back, and there was no way of understanding it, accepting it, finding out _why,_ because there was no why – no reason for his death as there had been no reason for all the other deaths in the explosion, in the Qunari explosion, in the Blight, by illness or by a murderer's hand –

her head was pulsating with tension, temples still and aching, and she could hear the hollow thuds of the heart in every shaking, hollow breath she gasped for.

Just – breathe –

 _just breathe, Hawke._

There was no way of knowing how long she had been lying there, sobbing unconsciously in the throes of her unexplainable grief. Solas was still and unmoving at her side, attempting neither to calm nor comfort her.

When her breathing slowed down back to calmed, regular rhythm, his voice sounded in the darkness.

"Rest now, Hawke. When the dawn breaks, I will ask you a favour."

"W-what-" her voice seemed too thick to get through the throat. "What do you want me to do?"

"You'll open the orb for me."

The orb. The one he was keeping in his pouch at all times. The geode, thrumming with unknown enchantment, veins of green minerals bright on its surface…

"Why?"

"I will fix my mistakes," he said in the dark, sounding almost apologetic. "I promise."

"How-"

"Rest now," he whispered, touching her temples. She could feel him pulling her inside the Fade, and resisted almost on instinct; but then she could see his face over hers, and his eyes brimming with regret as his thumb traced a soft pattern on her forehead. "You did well tonight, Hawke. Save your strength, _da'len… melava somniar._ "

She drifted away, rocked to the sound of his voice as he hummed an ancient lullaby in the darkness, seemingly half to himself, half to some old memory that shimmered in the shadows of the hut. The last thing she recalled before she slipped into the dim lights of the Fade was a touch of his lips, a soft kiss pressed to her forehead.

" _Ma garas mir renan… ara ma'athlan vhenas._ "

-/-

The morning air was cold and crisp when Hawke woke up. There was a fur thrown over her; without surprise she realised it was a wolf's pelt. As she walked out in the sun, huddling the fur close and swatting away Vindr's enthusiastic licking, she saw that the grass of the clearing was covered in crystal frost.

Winter was there. Solas, however, wasn't.

Her lip was swollen from where he'd bitten her last night.

In the sharp light of the morning, the events of the night seemed like a dream. She'd raised the sea. She'd kissed Solas. He'd told her, _I will fix my mistakes,_ eyes sad and regretful before she'd fallen asleep _…_

The orb.

Her grief was still there, sharp and painful, but – for the moment, in the frosty cleaning flooded by morning light – it was not overwhelming.

She went to the creek to look for him, Vindr trailing behind her, but he wasn't there either. She sat down at the side of the glimmering stream, feeling the cold air over the frozen ground, and how it made her blood run quicker; the entire world seemed sharper, as if it had finally found its edges, every contour sculpted precisely with fine lines of frost. The water seemed an extension of herself, an easy current of power outside of her, a delicate floating line of power.

Hawke closed her eyes, letting her mind flow with the stream.

She sensed him approach before he made himself heard. Without saying a word, Solas sat next to her at the stream, and slipped away; it was as if his spirit had left the body, leaving only the slow breath and languid, lazy heartbeat behind.

Everything in the forest was still, as if spellbound in waiting.

"Hawke." His voice was gentle, and she wondered whether it had been her breakdown that caused him to change like this. Or whether he'd finally come to respect her.

"Yes?"

"There is something you must know before I give you the orb." A short pause followed, the deliberateness in his choice of words almost palpable in the air. "I don't seek absolution. Only repentance."

She opened her eyes to finally look him in the face. The morning light was casting a delicate array of shadows on his smooth scalp, marking his features even sharper. Every emotion was clear, as if marked with a contour: sorrow, regret, determination.

"What does the orb do?"

"I told you that I made mistake. It split the world in two, causing death and misery beyond understanding. With your help, Hawke… I would tear down that wall."

"Who died? Your clan? How old _are_ you _,_ Solas?"

A shadow went through his face. "Yes. A clan, in a manner of speaking. I had… a people once. A responsibility, which I sought to fulfil in a way I thought right at the time. But instead, I saw them die, and I fell into slumber that weakened all the power I might have had. But now I would bring them back."

"The elves?"

" _My_ elves. If you will grant me your help."

"Does it cross the Veil?" asked Hawke, and she saw his eyes widen. _Score._ "Solas, I have a brain. You can't tell me these things and just expect to take it at face value. Not with _you_ concerned."

He relaxed, although the sorrow still gleamed through his eyes. She didn't understand it. "You guessed right, Hawke. They're within, the Dreamers of old, and along with them all our power that was lost. I want to reach across the Fade and bring them to the waking world, to at least attempt to right my wrongs."

 _An old Dreamer, who once closed off his people in the Fade. Now awakened, he would bring them back and atone._

 _If I could only do the same, perhaps bring Kirkwall back-_

"I'll help you, Solas."

He reached out and squeezed her hand. No words were exchanged. They sat together at the creek, listening to each other's heartbeat in the silent forest.

Solas was the first to stand up, pulling her upwards. "We're going to need more space than this." With these words, he tugged at the Veil around them – she barely managed to close her hand on Vindr's collar – and, as the space and time swirled in a spiral, the now-familiar stature of the wolf flashing in front of her eyes, they were back at the Storm Coast.

Solas furrowed his brows, clearly displeased. "Why have you brought a dog?"

"It's not _a_ dog, it's _my_ dog. Would've thought that over Maker knows however long you were squatting in Ferelden, you'd soak up our Mabari-loving attitude. Besides, he's now mad at me for leaving him behind before."

Vindr gave a long, thoughtful look. Solas tsked, then turned back to the sea. Hawke noticed that, like her, he was wearing a pelt of a giant grey wolf.

"You went hunting?"

"It calms me."

"Are you nervous?"

He flashed a rare smile. "Perhaps. I… worry, Hawke. You cannot erase a crime by reversing the world back to what it was. Even if I made it so that nothing was changed, which is of course impossible… you cannot will into inexistence the years of death, loss, and suffering that I caused. There will yet be the price to pay."

"But that's for when they are here."

"Yes." He unclasped the pouch from his waist and, very gently, took out the green geode. Holding the orb protectively, he murmured an enchantment, and she felt how strong the wards around it were only when they'd disappeared.

The sea was murmuring at his back, the pale-grey colour of the waves against the almost white morning sky.

"Why here, Solas? This can't be far from where you found me first."

"No. It's almost the same place. Do you remember why you landed here to begin with?"

"You told me that the Veil was the weakest here."

"Precisely." Solas cradled the orb in his hands, as if unwilling to let go. When she raised her eyebrows at him, he paused; for the first time she saw hesitation in his eyes.

She extended her arms, swelling the magic in the palm of her hand, the slow coursing of the sea currents echoing in her blood. Her power was back, and it was time to pay him back. _Taking without giving is shameful… and it's time to do at least one thing right._

"I'm ready."

"I'm sorry, Hawke," he whispered and unlocked the spell.

-/-

 _Pain. Blinding, searing pain. White agony, as if her entire body was bursting from within, turning inside out, every vein aflame, every cell screaming in excruciating torment, her skin peeling off at the scorching heat that consumed her body, soul, every living fibre-_

 _Torture._

 _She couldn't move, couldn't scream, the world turned green with the sick glow of the orb, there was fire in her throat, burning her from the inside so she couldn't even make a sound – even a squeak – stop – STOP –_

 _\- please –_

 _six eyes, six red lidless eyes, watching her with intensity but without mercy as she was burning alive, singed skin and meat peeling off the white bones, the smell of charred remains in the air, just like Kirkwall, your fault your fault your fault -_

 _something began twisting in her scorched insides, like a sack of vipers bursting open, slithering, venomous, green, a sensation of being ripped apart, the flesh coming apart as the opening wound tugged at her with the might of an earthquake, her magic pouring out like blood, she was bleeding out, and with every seeping drop the tug of the spell became stronger, mightier, grander, greener, the demons so close that they sneered her in the face, NO! but the magic was almost gone, not enough to heal herself, not enough to crawl shedding the burnt skin on the rocks, not enough to even scream-_

 _\- why –_

 _She was dying in agony, and on the horizon she saw the green lights of the Fade, the distant shape of the Black City, it's like falling asleep – just like falling asleep –_

"Stop! _"_

He snatched the orb from her hand and she fell face down in the sea, choking, dying, the wolf pelt red with blood- Vindr was howling wildly-

 _the wolf clasped his mouth around her neck, pulling her out._

A flash of green light.

"Come back, Hawke."

The Fade retreated, the demons wailing in anger as their connection snapped shut.

Solas' eyes were not green. They held its ordinary, greyish, boring colour. And they were opened wide over her, rueful and disappointed, sorrow radiating from his features like something palpable.

"You're not immortal," he said over her head. Words had no meaning. He could as well be speaking about the weather. "It would have killed you for nothing. All of it… for nothing."

He pressed a soft thumb to her face. "I am so sorry."

She coughed. Solas whispered an enchantment, cupping her cheeks intimately, and she felt the scorching burn in her throat ease up.

"Not… immortal?"

"I need an immortal to open the orb. There has to be a way, and I have time." He seemed to be talking to himself. "No more mistakes. No more mortals in the way… not as long as I don't have to."

"What- what are you even talking about?" she wheezed. His eyes refocused on her.

"I'm sorry."

"Y-yeah, me too." Something hit her. "All of it? What'd you mean – _all of it_ for nothing?"

Solas held her for one more second, pressing his forehead to hers.

"I was trying to save my people," he said, almost pleading. "Please. There is no erasing what I've done. And there's no forgiveness. But if you ever find it in your heart to understand, Hawke, just to understand…"

"Yeah-" She coughed again. "I understand, Solas. That hurt like hell, and next time _you_ can do it _yourself_ , but I under-"

He let her go, sliding her down gently on the fine sand.

"Your lover is alive."

Hawke's heart stopped.

The world shrunk to one speck.

"I knew from the moment I found you, Hawke. You punched a hole through the Veil, I remain unsure how… You channelled your entire native power into it, and you folded the Veil for thousands of miles to send him home. I traced you because I knew you held the power to help me open the skies, the power that would shake the world and bring back the elves…" Solas rambled, but she barely heard him. The pounding in her temples grew deafening.

 _Fenris is alive._

 _He's alive._

 _I saved him. He's alive._

 _He's been alive this entire time-_

A caustic wave rose through her stomach to the throat-

"You knew." It was no more than a whisper, but it cut him off immediately.

"I knew," he conceded quietly.

"And you didn't tell me." A memory flashed in her brain, _I kissed him. And then I cried, mourning my lover WHO WAS ALIVE AND SOLAS KNEW-_

"I needed you."

"You're sick," she spat, and he recoiled. The regret and sorrow in his face finally had a concrete reason, but she didn't care, it was way beyond her capability to care. "Was it fun, watching me squirm and cry and grievefor _weeks?!_ Is that what you're into?! Taking people and tricking them into doing whatever you need, and then discarding your toys because they're no longer _useful?!_ Telling women their partner's dead so you can have their way with them-"

"I deserve this," he said, the hurt evident on his face, "but _please-_ "

"Oh no, no you don't. I am _done_ hearing you interrupt me, Solas. If that's even your real name. You don't get to _please_ and _listen_ your way out of his. I almost _broke._ I almost _lost my mind because I thought he was dead_ and I was ready to die because there was nothing else to live for on the entire earth, and- and-" she stuttered. "You _needed_ me?! What the hell did _I_ need, Solas?! Has it ever crossed your mind?!"

"Constantly," he said quietly.

"So why?! I want to hear your reasons, _hahren,_ " she spat with bitter irony. "You want me to understand?! Give me something to understand. Because right now, this- this is _sick._ "

"You had the power. You could have open the gate for me. But if you'd slipped away…"

"Has it never crossed your mind that I could've done _everything_ for someone who gave Fenris back to me?!"

Silence. Solas looked down.

"I'm sorry, Hawke."

"No. No, you're not. Because if you needed it again, and if this… this _thing_ happened again to you…" She looked him straight in the face, and he seemed to recoil at the anger in her eyes. "You would do the same thing, Solas, wouldn't you? You haven't learnt a damn thing. You still think that your _cause_ justifies all those atrocities you've done to me."

He shook his head. "I don't deserve forgiveness."

"No. And I'm not going to give it to you."

"Hawke-"

"You know where he is, don't you." Solas gave a slow now, and her gaze hardened even more. " _I hate you so much right now._ But I can't kill you, can I? _"_

He shook his head just as slowly. Hawke gritted her teeth.

"Where is Fenris?"

"In Seheron."

" _Where?_ "

"You sent him home, Hawke," he said softly, and she clenched her fists at the gentleness in his voice. "Where he comes from. The spirits tell me he has become the bearer of great power, and a warrior in a fight for freedom. He searches for you."

Her insides spasmed violently at that. _He searches for you. He searches- and I didn't even know-_

"You _twisted_ , _sick_ -" she bit back a curse. That could wait. But her heart was beating out a crazy-paced staccato, and there were things that absolutely _could not_ wait. "Take me to him. Right now."

She expected him to protest or open his arms helplessly. But Solas merely nodded. "This is perhaps the right place. I can retrace the folds in the Veil so you can step through them again."

" _I hate you,_ " she breathed. His eyes were old and sad, the crisp light of the morning drawing out every crease, every wrinkle on his age-marked face. "Whatever you did before, I don't care. But for someone who claims to look for repentance… you're just a liar, Solas. Just a fucking liar. The only thing you really want is for things to go your way, and you don't care about anything else than your games. You treat people like pawns. _I hate you._ "

"I wronged you, Hawke. I…" He turned his gaze away, regret filling his features. "I was a coward not to trust you. But you gave me your company, and your warmth and kindness when I was alone on an empty dying world. And perhaps the only thing I can offer you, except my apologies, is… my thanks."

Hawke laughed humourlessly. She closed her hand on Vindr's collar as the mabari began to growl deeply; Solas made a swirling gesture with his hands-

"You know what _I_ can give you? A hope. Just my hope that one day, you'll find someone you will really, actually love. And maybe you'll lie to her too. And then one day you'll tell her the truth about what you are, about what you do to people, and she will say…" She narrowed her eyes. "She will say, 'I hate you.' And you'll be left grieving, _alone._ "

The Veil twisted around her, and the last thing she saw was Solas' face splitting and breaking and an emotion flowing out, a helpless rage and despair and regret and- _the Wolf was howling in desperation in the blinding light of the rising morning-_

-/-

She was on a beach again. But the air was warm and humid, and the jungle spread behind her back.

The wolf pelt was still on her shoulders, hot and moist in the northern air. Hawke took it off and stared at it with blind, unseeing eyes.

 _He gave me my magic back. He gave me the sea. He was a friend when I needed one-_

 _-but he lied, and he kept Fenris away from me._

She took a swing and tossed the pelt far beyond the black cliffs of Seheron. The ocean closed over it.

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

...So thissssssssss.

I have so many feels.

I don't know what to SAY.

SOLAS WHY

[Also, on another IMPORTANT note: may this chapter serve as a friendly reminder that **if you find yourself in a sexual situation that you don't entirely feel comfortable with, no matter how** _ **into it**_ **you've gotten, you have every right to stop at ANY GIVEN MOMENT.** There is no "too stupid" or "too immature" a reason, and you cannot go "too far" not to be able to stop and retreat. You don't owe your partner anything, and you sure as hell don't owe them a second more of sexual closeness than you feel it's right for you - and if they aren't an asshole, they will instinctually know it - like Solas there. This is an advice that I wish I'd got much earlier in life.]

Now, with that out of the way... i'm out to waddle through the oceans of sadness in Solas' green green eyes as he screws up yet another important thing in his life in his quest for restoring greatness but really just kind of RUINING EVERYTHING


	30. Finding home

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 9: Finding home**

Hawke looked around, for the first time in her life staring at a northern jungle. The forest was _gigantic,_ spreading so tall and wide that there when she came close, there was barely any sky visible through the thick green tangle. From the top canopy – with ginormous palm trees and trunks seemingly going all the way to the low-hanging clouds – to the lowest levels of thorny bushes and half-burned sticks, there was spreading a wild, uncontrollable tangle of vines, ferns, and lianas, the leaves springing jealously to the sunlight, the heavy baskets of fern roots weaving around white-spotted branches, with an occasional orchid flower peeking out of a crack in an old baobab tree. The jungle was rustling, teeming with life, and Hawke suddenly felt nervous; it was nothing like the southern wilds that she knew, more bustling and more aggressive at the same time.

Vindr scraped around the sand, his fur standing on ends. He seemed distressed and confused.

She retreated to the beach, watching the forest from a safe distance. The sky was heavy with white clouds; she faintly remembered Fenris saying something about a monsoon season…

 _Fenris._ A pinch of now-reflexive sadness, then a rush of emotions- and Hawke felt her heart pick up the pace, beating out a fast, nervous, uneven rhythm. He had to be here somewhere. Solas had said he'd been fighting. Seheron was dangerous. But Fenris was dangerous too, and he was alive, he had to be alive, this was definitely the south of Thedas, if this was another lie, then she was going to _kill_ Solas, immortality be damned – if he were really immortal. She swatted away the intrusive thought. She was the Champion of Kirkwall, dammit, and she had killed thousands and waited years for that man. She'd find him now too.

But then she looked back at the edge of the jungle and felt the confidence wane slightly.

She gathered her resolve and started marching right in, the dog trotting along after her with ears laid low-

" _Hawke!_ "

She turned back in a flash, magic swelling in her palm. But the men on the beach – three of them – raised their arms in an universal gesture of _unarmed._ She hadn't heard them approach, nor heard them appear, but just one look at their white-painted faces and ashen skin gave her an idea as to who the men could be.

They were tall, lean and muscular, clad in cloudy white that made them indistinguishable from the beach. One elf, two humans, faces covered in white markings that made her heart swell, a painful thorn twisting deeper in her guts.

They approached cautiously, watching her with every step. _They know I'm a mage._ There was only one way they could call her by her name, and know she was a mage, and – and - _now. Show him to me now. I've been waiting for too long._ She raised her hands too and crossed the distance between them. Vindr gave a short bark and followed.

They spoke to her in fast, accented Tevene, and Hawke suddenly felt like an idiot. _Of course they wouldn't speak Common. Why would they? This is an island, and it's not like they have a lot of visitors…_ She focused, trying to remember as much as she could from Fenris' lessons back in Kirkwall.

" _Sono… la Campione,_ " she said haltingly, and the Fog Warriors shushed, watching her. " _Delle Marche Libere. Sto cercando il mio… compagno?_ Right? _Compagno? Giusto?_ "

The Warriors nodded. They were smiling, their mouths shining an open, human, comforting red in their white-covered faces. Hawke could only hope that was out of encouragement and not something more sinister.

" _Ha… capelli bianchi… e pelle scure…_ " she wallowed in her fragmented linguistic knowledge, then realising what she'd said and pinking slightly. Each one of the Warriors had dark skin and white – or at least white-covered – hair. It seemed like she was going to need more specific vocabulary.

Or… perhaps not. " _Fenris_ ," she said, and their eyes glimmered collectively at the same time. " _Sto cercando Fenris._ "

The elf grinning at her spoke a short sentence. All she got was _Lupo Bianco-_

 _White Wolf._

 _He was there. He was alive, and he was there. He_ was _there._ The elf repeated it again, and it was _mi segui-_

 _Follow me._

She nodded. The Warriors spoke to each other for a moment, and then the elf pulled her hand forward, surprising her with how strong his grip was. She followed, barely making her way behind the quick feet of the Warrior, deeper and deeper into the jungle until they reached a gaping chasm and she didn't even have the time to _scream_ when the arms of the elf gripped her and the dog and they jumped into the void, falling to their de-

-stination.

She slumped on the black rock, exhausted. The air was too hot and humid. Her clothes felt heavy, sweaty, and dirty, and her heart had almost jumped out of her chest when they made the jump… The mabari was whining quietly at her side, shell-shocked.

The elf stood over them, still grinning, obviously giving her time to calm down. Raising her head as her eyes adjusted to the dark, Hawke took in the grand view of the Fog Warrior camp carved in black volcanic rock, the foreign-looking signs and symbols covering the walls in white paint, and in between the tents the ashen-skinned people sat over bonfires, laughing, talking, preparing meals, or kneeling in silence, staring at the walls-

 _Solas said Fenris was fighting in a battle._ A rush of nervousness took over her again and she stood up, pulling the sleeve of the elf until he seemed serious.

" _Fenris,_ " she said intently. "Take me to him." If the words did not do the trick, the tone would.

The elf seemed to understand. He pulled her in, reflexively drumming a rhythm on her hand – she raised her eyebrows – and led her to one of the tents at the far side of the camp, crossing through the lines of bonfires. Cheers greeted them, and they seemed sincere enough – at least the elf did not seem to mind, answering every call with a singsong phrase on his own. But Hawke raced forward, and when they finally reached the one tent he seemed to want, she impatiently pulled the opening to reveal-

-a tall dark-skinned woman dressing her chest wound.

The elf did not seem embarrassed, even though he looked away. Hawke felt a dull, disappointed ache in her belly, covering a hardly contained rush within. _Please – now –_

"Champion," the woman spoke in a strange singsong accent of Seheron. "Be welcomed."

She nodded impatiently. "Where's Fenris?"

"In the…" She hesitated, evidently looking for the word. " _Tunnels._ He fights."

Hawke felt as if she were falling through the abyss again. Only it didn't end, she was falling and falling without the bottom, her heart picking up the mad pace of a hunted rabbit. _He's fighting in the tunnels. And he's not going to come out, he's going to die there, the stone will cash on him like the water once did and-and-no, no, no, no, I can't, he can't die, that would be too much terrible luck for anybody? But if he will-_

Her knees buckled under her. The woman reached to help her but yelped in pain, her injured shoulder clicking loudly, and Hawke landed on the floor of the tent, light-headed and terrified. Vindr was at her side in an instant, barking protectively. She vaguely recalled that it was the still same morning when Solas' enchantment had tortured her on the coast… Some of her anguish must have got onto her face, because the woman looked alarmed.

"Please," whispered Hawke. " _Please._ I can't take it. Not one more minute. Just bring me to him." _And please, please, please let him be alive when I find him- please, Maker, I beg you-_

The woman stared at her for a second, then nodded sharply. She called out in Tevene – the elf from before popped into the tent, evidently having waited outside – and issued a short order. The elf pulled Hawke up, the woman pulled on a loose shirt, and all three of them – with the mabari closing the procession - walked out from the tent and away from the camp. 

Hawke noticed blood on the black rocks. She felt giddy with stress.

The deeper they descended, the more Warriors there were lying on makeshift beds, either groaning in pain or dressing their wounds. The medics were hurrying across, their feet making no noise in the tunnels – come to think of it, there was very little noise in the tunnels to begin with, and everything seemed to be unclear, her vision fogging up as if she were falling asleep-

She blinked and pinched herself hard, but it did not go away. The woman noticed her move and smirked.

"Fog," she said, waving her hand in front of her face.

 _Fog Warriors. Of course._ Hawke felt heat on her cheeks. It seemed like she was ridiculously out of her element here. It seemed almost a relief to focus on something else except the growing tension in her belly, the unbearable thoughts exploding in her brain one after another- _he cannot be dead, he'll be alright, he's a lyrium warrior, he'll be fine…_

A scream shot through the hot, moist cavern air and Hawke felt the blood drain from her face. _Please…_

The silence was maddening.

One step after another – just one after another – don't think – don't think –

A team of warriors stood at the end of a tunnel at a barricade. They were pulling away the Qunari corpses piling up on the other end.

And – between them –

A familiar song of lyrium and blood.

She'd felt him before she saw him.

An inhumane shriek tore out of her throat and, abandoning all pretences, Hawke started to run, run, run-

He saw her. She could see a rare, open surprised smile light up his face, before it got immediately snuffled out by worry, but _it didn't matter didn't matter one more step FENRIS_

He closed his arms around her, rocking against the impact, and Hawke clung to him with every inch of her body.

 _He's alive._

 _He's alive._

 _He's alive._

His heart was beating steadily against her head. Like in Kirkwall. Like every night for years. She didn't even realise she was crying until the sobbing shook her whole, and clenching her hands spasmodically over the ledges of his armour, she reached out to kiss him through the tears.

He was there, warm, chapped lips moving under hers. The lyrium under his lower lip sang her own song, a lullaby to calm a broken heart. She felt the keen loss of his right arm around her back but he just reached out to cup her cheek – a wonderfully _right_ feeling – and wipe off the sweat and tears with his thumb. He looked worried.

"F-Fenris," she whispered with broken voice. He furrowed his brows.

"Hawke," he said in a low tone that made her insides stir. _He's alive._ "What happened?"

More tears were coming out, and Hawke hid her face in his chest. _How can I ever explain-_

"I-I thought-" she choked out, helpless to stop another sob, "I thought _you were dead_ -"

"What," said Fenris flatly, in a disbelieving tone. His hand clenched on her back.

"And- and that it was my fault-"

He kissed her, drowning out the rest of the sobbing confession, and she let him. She felt light-headed, almost out of the body, his hands and lips the only anchor to reality that held her in the tunnel… Fenris cursed into her mouth, feeling her slide against him inertly. _Just like after the Arishok._ He pulled her into his chest, her head against his shoulders, knees over his arm, and just like that, they were back in Kirkwall, and she was still reeling from the duel that was, amongst others, for _his_ right to be free…

Hawke closed her eyes, inhaling his scent of blood and lyrium.

 _Peace._

She floated away to the rhythm of his beating heart.

-/-

Fenris stared at the limp body of the woman he loved more than his own freedom, in a state of complete and utter disbelief.

Asha and one of her troops were standing at the back of the tunnel, brows raised. The tribes around him were watching him with various shades of smile and worry on their faces.

Hawke wasn't alright. She was as far from alright as it got. And this nonsense – _I thought you were dead –_ was probably to blame.

Cradling her protectively, he walked towards Asha. There was blood on her shirt – he guessed she hadn't managed to dress the wound properly before Hawke showed up.

"So," Asha said, her smile at the spectacle giving way to a frown as she looked at his face, "this is the Champion of Kirkwall. Your love."

"Yes."

"She was desperate to see you. I've never seen anything like it."

"Did you teach her Tevene?" said the elf, who, if he remembered correctly, was named Olor. "She spoke a bit. The accent was even stranger than yours, but all in all, it wasn't bad."

Fenris shook his head, a spark of pride lighting up as he looked down on Hawke pressed tightly to his chest. "That was a long time ago."

A quiet whine sounded from below Hawke, and he bent his neck to see her faithful mabari poke his legs with a wet snout. "What happened to your mistress, Vindr?"

The dog gave a thoughtful look and licked his knee.

"She doesn't look well," said Asha. "Is her skin supposed to be that colour?"

"She's just a Fereldan. But no, I don't think she's well." Who'd told her he was dead? _Where had she been?_ "Olor, where did you find her?"

"The beach. The exact same place where we found you, White Wolf. She looked so frightened by the jungle that she couldn't have been on the island for long."

That was correct. On Seheron, the jungle wasn't the scary part – it was who it concealed. Still… He furrowed his brows even deeper, thinking on whatever scenario could have led Hawke to believe that he was dead – and by her doing.

Unless…

"Olor, can you stand in for me?"

The elf nodded vigorously. Asha shot him a pointed glance – Olor was a young, inexperienced warrior who had no business guarding the barricades – but Fenris just passed her, uncaring. She followed him back to the camp, the dog trailing behind them, eyed fixed on Hawke in his arms.

 _His_ tent, still new, with the leathers painted with the lightning imagery, was close to hers. Asha lingered at the opening when he kneeled down, putting Hawke on the soft pelts. She was breathing evenly, but even in her sleep she refused to let go of his hand.

"Fenris…" said Asha quietly. "Did she come to take you away?"

"What?" He snorted, not looking at her. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I don't know how much longer we can hold on," Asha said, and there was unusual vulnerability in her voice. "But if you're not with us… You were brought here on the island by her spell. She can whisk you away just as easily."

"I'm not going away, Asha." He looked up to her, and it seemed that the certainty in his eyes was enough to placate her – for the time being.

"Out, Vindr." Fenris pushed the dog out of the tent. The mabari shot him a wounded look, but stayed outside, staring at the Fog Warriors with his snout in the air.

He crawled into the tent himself, not letting go of Hawke's hand, and laid behind her, feeling her entire body sprawl over his. He let out a long breath. For the first time in – perhaps forever – he felt completely at home.

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

Sweet stuff. They still have one hell of a conversation to get through once Hawke gets better, but at least they're together now.

I'm just happy for Fenris. I mean - that's just his dream scenario. He's got all his ducks in a row now, freedom paid off, crimes atoned for, heritage reclaimed, epic legend acquired, objective found, a surrogate sister bonded with. And now Hawke's back too. There would be nothing worry about, were it not for that pesky Qunari invasion threatening to swallow all he holds dear.

Oh, and I know that Tevene would be more or less our Vulgar Latin, but I took a little bit of artistic licence here and the Seheron people speak Italian. Mostly because it made me laugh imagining Hawke's voice actor try to wrap her lovely Ferelda- ahem BRITISH accent around all that Italian singsonginess. Sono la Campioooooneeeeee. (e sì, campione non campionessa, perché il mi dice che si può usare 'campione' sia per il maschile che per il femminile, e anche perché ho l'antipatia istintiva per tutti i nomi che sono creati in un modo che sembra serio, ma col stesso sufisso che questi modificatori scherzosi o spregiativi, pfffff... viva il femminismo linguistico)


	31. Live on

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter 15: Live on**

He must have dozed off, because when he opened his eyes, Hawke was staring at him with an uncertain, fragile smile.

"I love you," she whispered, pressing her lips across his cheek. "I love you too much."

Fenris pressed her close, almost slamming her face into the crook of his shoulder. She made a muffled, surprised sound. "I missed you, Hawke. "

She inhaled deeply – her nose was literally on the lines of his lyrium, the mage junkie she was – and the frail, cold aura of her magic seemed to relax in the air, the tension unwinding palpably. It was different now – the edges of her aura didn't seem to flicker playfully as he had been used to, moving in a slow wave instead. He wondered about that.

It had been weeks. Where had she been? What happened?

"The last time we talked," she said, her voice strained and muffled in his skin. He felt more than heard her speak. "I snapped at you. I'm sorry."

He had troubles remembering what the spat was even about. "Don't worry about it, Hawke."

"I promise I'll be more patient now. I promise-" Another sob choked her voice, and he squeezed her even tighter. She wasn't well. And the cold radiating from her at every cry did not seem to help. Her skin was pale and freezing, slick with cold sweat, and when he ran his fingers through her hair, untangling her messy braid, there was something knotting her thick black locks-

Dried blood. He swallowed with difficulty. She was a mage, a fighter, a Champion. She know how to fight her own battles. And yet…

"Where have you been, Hawke?"

She was just sobbing quietly in his arms.

"Who told you I was dead?"

"I-I saw it." She sniffed, in an attempt to calm down. "You never came out. From the ship. And I…"

Oh. "You thought I died in the ship fire."

"Y-yes."

Fenris blinked. He remembered that. The heat, the smoke, the crash as the board collapsed over him… "How did I survive?"

A half-smile appeared on Hawke's tear-drenched face. "How d-do you ever survive?"

"You saved me." He hid the smile in her hair. It wasn't a question anymore, the capabilities of this woman. But… "How did I end up in Seheron?"

"I pulled the sea. I… wanted to bring you to safety. Bring you home."

"You pulled the sea," he repeated flatly. "How?"

"Well-"

"If you're going to say magic, Hawke, I will squish you."

"Alright." She let out a strained chuckle into his chest. The desperation was slowly draining from her, leaving out something hollow and tired – but, also, the depths of herself underneath. He kissed her hair. It tasted of salt.

"I… well, he said…" Her voice darkened. "That I punched a hole in the Veil. Like a Fade Step, but through thousands of miles. I… I almost killed myself doing that, I poured all my power into it. But I got you to safety."

He stared at her. "You… teleported me. From Ferelden to Seheron. Across the entire Thedas. To the north of Tevinter."

"I didn't know what I was doing. I was desperate."

"You're mad, Hawke." He wasn't sure what to feel. They were in Seheron, that was the undeniable fact – but that Hawke would do it without even realising… The power she wielded wasn't just overwhelming, it was downright scary.

Another kernel of explosive information hit him. "You almost killed yourself?!"

She flashed another half-smile that he couldn't see, but felt it in the movements of her face against his chest. "Not intentionally. And also… almost."

"Hawke. Your hair is covered in blood."

"Guess I'll have to wash it." And here it was, the insufferableness he knew all too well.

"What in the Void did you do?"

"No, it's not from this almost death. This was much later."

"You mean there were two times you almost died when I wasn't with you?"

"…Perhaps."

He squeezed her wrists to the point of pain, wringing out the unsettling ease from her voice. The wince she gave was an indication that she'd felt it. She craned her neck to look him in the eye; her strikingly blue irises were shining against the red of the puffed cheeks and her unhealthily pale skin.

"Hawke," he said in a low growl. "What happened?"

She blinked twice, very slowly, her eyelids heavy and swollen with exhaustion. "Can you kiss me first?"

He pulled her towards him and obliged.

The frustration and worry slipped to the forefront, and it began more violent than he expected, his lips slamming into her like a sign of his right to her, but Hawke wasn't responding with the same passion, seemingly stiff in his arms. It felt… strange. He slowed down, kissing her more gently, with tenderness flowing out to the top; and she seemed to relax as he rubbed soothing circles on her back, smoothening the creases on her tunic. He kissed her nose, cheeks, trailing his mouth across her forehead, feathering soft kisses across her closed eyes, feeling the salt of her tears and a distant, dried smell of blood. She shivered in his arms, and the kiss floated away, leaving him even more unsure and more worried that he'd started with.

"Hawke…"

"I…" She looked down, still leaning in the crook of his shoulder. "I kissed someone else."

Fenris sucked in a sharp breath. A blaze of murderous jealousy shot through his brain and suddenly the tent flashed with white light when the lyrium came alight-

She thought I was dead.

I don't know what happened.

…I will hear it first.

He let go of the long breath, his arms suddenly stiff around her. The flash of pain in her tired eyes was all too real, but-

"Tell me, Hawke." His voice was suddenly unrecognisable.

"I didn't sleep with him. I couldn't. I was desperate, I thought you were dead, I had nothing left to make me feel like I was still alive, I just wanted to be understood… and he understood, Fenris, he understood, and I-" the frantic staccato of her voice broke, "I still couldn't… it felt wrong. I just saw him and I…" Hawke raised her trembling hand and reached out for the side of his neck, where the lyrium tattoos met the ears, and he let her. Her aura seemed dark, cold, stormy like an ocean in the winter, and her hands were freezing against her skin.

"You've got a fever, Hawke."

"Please… can you forgive me for that?" Her eyes were feverish too, brimming with more tears, and his heart twisted painfully. Whatever happened, it wasn't her fault.

"For having a fever?" he asked in a low voice, embracing her again. She let out a breathless chuckle, her arms squeezing him in tightness that could, in time, become uncomfortable. If Hawke had any muscle to begin with.

"I love you. I didn't even know how much, until I thought that this would be my life after you, and I couldn't- I just couldn't…"

"I'm alive," he said, as gently as he could. There was no way he could hold it against her. He leant down to kiss her hair again, returning to tracing soothing patterns on her back. There were entire For Warrior sagas he could now tell her, the language of touch recalled…

They would have time for that.

"What happened after I disappeared?"

And she told him, voice muffled and cracking, but raising every time. That was the Hawke he knew.

The story was, too, something that could happen only to her. After losing her magic in the sea she'd taken it back from the hands of a spirit – he narrowed his brows at that – only to lose it again in an act of vengeance, defying the Chantry and burning the temple of his would-be murderers to the ground. Then, escaping and powerless, she'd found someone else, an elven hermit who'd taught her new magic in place of what she'd lost…

"Hermit?" he asked incredulously. Hawke shook her head, her eyes dark.

"There's more to that."

It turned out that as he had been finding his place in the Fog Warrior society, she'd struggled to regain her mind and magic in a hermit hut in Ferelden. The old elven mage – Fastus, Pride, or Solas – had been teaching her, changing her instinctual magic, which would probably explain the cold edge of her aura now. Fenris wondered when the man that Hawke'd kissed was going to appear in the narrative. Was it another student of the mage? Then the story swirled into something uncomfortable, about the pond, about the sea, and then-

Hang on.

"Hawke, please don't tell me you kissed the hermit."

She let out a long, frustrated breath. "You don't understand. He wasn't a hermit, and he sure as hell did not belong in that shed. I don't know who or what he was, but he told me he was a Dreamer. Like Feynriel, but older. Much older."

Disgust twisted his features. "You're not helping."

"You can laugh. But I think he could have been Dalish."

"An elf in Fereldan woods? Of course he was Dalish, Hawke."

"No. Not Dalish like the elves, Dalish like Dales. The country. Before it's fallen to an Exalted March."

The disgust faded into incredulity. "Just how old would that make him?"

"I don't know, but he didn't look it. There were so many things that just didn't make sense with him. He taught me all that power, told me the story of how he'd somehow killed or trapped more elven Dreamers in the Fade, and asked me to help him bring them back. So… I said yes." Hawke's tone descended into something cold. "That was today."

He shook his head. Something awful had happened. "Why do you always trust shady mages on your way?"

"He wanted to bring his people back, Fenris. To atone for whatever he'd done. I… related."

He recalled the way she'd collapsed over Kirkwall and squeezed her closer. So the kiss was about shared grief… "What happened today?"

Her aura coiled around them in an uncomfortable way. "He was going to kill me, Fenris."

"What."

He just sat motionlessly, barely hearing whatever else she was saying. There was anger in her aura, and more cold, pained energy, but the only thing he was really aware of was the freezing thought that for weeks she had been with someone that was going to murder her and he didn't even know-

He didn't even know.

Hawke was saying something over the whirring in his ears. "… and it almost split me open, I thought I was dying, it took all my magic… But then he stopped, and said that it was pointless, that he needed an immortal to open the orb, whatever in the Void that meant, and told me that you were alive. And that he'd known that all the way, he just needed me for the enchantment."

White-hot anger in her voice matched his own. He was torn between giving in to fury, the urge of finding that elf and ripping his heart out with his own hands, relief that she was here now, anger that he hadn't been aware and could've have known, or… or…

"And he sent me here."

He was silent and still for a long moment, slowly processing everything she'd just told him. Hawke seemed alarmed by that.

"Fenris?"

He took a long breath,

"We will come back there," he said, every sound made of sharp fleshcutting metal, "and we will find him. Then I will disembowel him myself."

I made a promise like that once before. And like Danarius, he will fall.

"You'd have to wait in line for that," said Hawke, her voice filled with cold fury that took him aback. "He could've just taken me to you the moment he found me. But no. And for every moment I thought you were dead-"

"He will suffer." There was a sharp contrast between what he said and the fiercely protective way he brought her closer, but Hawke did not seem to notice. Or mind.

She was never cruel nor ruthless. But she knew better than to stop him.

They laid in silence, Fenris' mind wandering restlessly, exploring the consequences of Hawke's story. An elven Dreamer from the time of Dales… and one that would not hesitate to kill and manipulate his way into his penance. He felt almost relieved that the south was thousands of miles away; someday they would return and extract their vengeance, and return back to the swirling chaos of Thedas because there was simply no other way for Hawke to live than in the heart of the storm… but until then, the life of Seheron was simple. Harsh, unforgiving and bloody, but simple.

He kissed her temple. "You are with me now, Hawke. And we are not parting again."

"No." A smile was in her tired voice. "I think if we were, something on this island would kill me in half a bell."

"Possibly," he admitted, even though she probably meant the local fauna – extremely venomous but harmless if unbothered – instead of the Tevinter and Qunari forces.

"So," she pulled him to the side so now he was lying on his back, and crawled onto him, pressing her head to his chest – he could still feel the cold radiating from her - "how did you end up so settled here?"

He encircled her with his arms and, as neatly as he could, told the story of his arrival in Seheron. Hawke listened, and for a moment it brought him back to Kirkwall, back to the simpler, better times when he'd been devouring every book on the shelf and then re-telling it to her, mimicking the way Varric would tell his own stories and making her laugh by the sheer ridiculousness of the comparison… Only now this story was different, and it had more in common with the way fog dancers shared their tales. It had unexpected weight as he recounted it for her. I'm a Coruscati, by the right of blood I spilt, and the story I tell is mine own.

The Warrior Who Wielded Lightning-

An unexpected thought appeared in his mind, blatant in its obviousness. "Hawke," he said, trailing off the story of how Asha and he had gone to the tunnels. "I think I know where your power has gone." She stirred against him as he rose up, pulling her with him to their knees. Fenris' hand found the torched staff behind him, the one thing that he'd been holding on to ever since he'd arrived.

Hawke blinked, confused. "I lost it, Fenris. Then I had to find it in the water. It's fine."

"No. Because I found it."

"…How?"

"You sent it here with me, Hawke. It saved our lives." And, with a reflexive bow, he offered her the scorched, burnt wood of a sparring rod that she had charred with her own magic not too long ago. Hawke's eyes widened as she closed her hand on it.

A blinding light exploded from the staff-

-a blazing column of white-hot energy that sent him reeling – fire fire fire, a raging golden inferno rising up to meet the sky - her aura went wild as if two opposite energies collided, one cold and mighty like death and another a furious flame -

but as he opened his eyes to look at her, the screams of Fog Warriors in the distance, Hawke's face was strung in awe, her pupils small in the shining, blazing blue. And she was hot, and it felt right, but also different -

Her voice was just a whisper of dazed wonderment. "It makes sense."

He reached out for her hand, then thought better of it as the lyrium stung almost painfully in his skin. "What makes sense?"

"I put it out. The fire. Because water kills the fire, it stops it. But there's more… and that's what you did, Fenris. You remade it into something the sea cannot kill. The pure power."

The blinding column of light.

"The lightning."

"Yes," she breathed, and there was a real sense of awe on her brightened, shining face. "It fits."

It did fit. The energy coursing through the air had a steady, regal feel – Hawke's own warmth with the power and intentionality of an ocean.

"It's back. I'm whole again," she said, leaning against him – he braced himself for the searing pain of awakened lyrium, just like in the caverns – but there wasn't anything except the feeling of immense power washing over him, one powerful wave of warm, flickering energy after another, bathing them in silvery-white light as the markings in his skin responded to her. Like they always did, in the end.

He held a storm in his arms. The power to destroy and to save. Magic that would destroy someone lesser, and he could only be glad that Hawke's power was her own – because if it weren't, the world would have unravelled at the hands from yet another unhinged mage. But she held it, and he held her, and so…

Kissing Hawke's smiling lips, he realised that he was finally whole again too.

"Fenris!" Asha pulled away the folds of the tent unceremoniously. For a split second he wanted to bark something angry but then he remembered where he was, what was happening, that Asha could be his sister but she was also a chief-

Hawke pulled away from him, the lyrium light going out. Asha did not seem to pay attention to what she'd interrupted. "They broke through the tunnels. You need to go down now."

A jolt of fear and guilt shot through him. Was it because he weren't there-

"The barricades are falling, the Silvangali can't hold them on their own. They have brought another sarebaas."

Hawke's brows shot up at the sound of the familiar word in the middle of clipped Tevene.

It took him less than a second to find the sword in the furs. But before he could walk out of the tent Hawke pulled him back down. "Translate."

"I have to go and fight."

"Alright." Her hand closed on the staff again. "Then I'm going too."

He hesitated. Hawke wasn't okay, and she had never fought blind like a Fog Warrior. But-

"This is not up to you, Fenris." Her face bore the same unquenchable fire he was all too familiar with. She clicked her fingers and Vindr was at her side too, fur standing on ends, ready for whatever the mistress was leading into.

A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. There was no way he could win this. "Be quick."

The camp was empty, except for the group of children gathered around the fireplace on the far end of the cavern. One of them stood, her small frame clearly cut out against the fire. "Mister Warrior!"

"Verra."

"What are you even doing here? My mum's out there fighting! Go help her!" There was fire in the girl's eyes, and her face was covered in white. Fenris just nodded and paced along. Wordlessly, Asha passed him the fog bombs and the paint; he felt Hawke's eyes on him as he drew white lines on his face, a simple, angular design of the Coruscati. He'd done that so many times over the last weeks it almost felt like a reflex, but he was still new to the intense feeling of belonging it brought.

He could hear the fighting in the tunnels long before he was expecting it.

With his left hand, he crossed a question on Asha's skin. How bad is it? She cast him an impassive glance, and although her face seemed closed off and focused, he remembered enough from the little girl at the camp, ten years ago, to understand the one emotion he knew better than the Fog Warriors.

Fear.

His heart sunk as they picked up a fast pace.

A flicker of fire lit the tunnels and Fenris recalled that Hawke, not an elf and not a Fog Warrior, required light to see. Her magic made Asha jump, hand on the fog bomb-

"Relax," he hissed. "Hawke, douse that." His hand closed on her elbow, leading her closer. Her blue eyes glimmered with the flame before the darkness enveloped them again, an unspoken sign of trust.

The clatter of steel grew closer and in a moment, they were enveloped by the thick fog flowing out from the exit tunnels-

A corpse was lying on the cold rocks. An ashaad, with a knife in the back of his neck. Fenris felt the cold spread through his body with an ominous shiver; no Qunari should have been able to get this far. That meant the barricades…

He heard the heavy feet coming towards them. A sten.

… were broken.

Asha silently stepped forward and he squeezed her injured shoulder hard, making her wince painfully. You're wounded, he signed, drumming the words pointedly on the dressing. She shoved him hard in the side, but stayed put.

At his side, Hawke held Vindr's collar just as tight.

The Qunari didn't see nor hear them. He moved forward, clearly confused, blood and vitaar dripping from a shallow slash on his chest. Fenris moved, his feet silent on the stone, before he was close enough he could smell the heaviness in the sten's breath, and raised his blade to slit his throat-

A scream echoed through the air behind them and the Qunari rushed forward blindly, slamming into him with the force of a battering ram. He fell heavily to the side. The energy shot through the air and suddenly a blazing torch of light ran through the tunnels, roaring in pain. Vindr raced after it, gnawing at the Qunari's ankles and stopping him in its fiery rampage.

Asha's blade cut through the nape of his neck, leaving the freshly-made corpse to burn. "Asala-tar," she said grimly when Hawke pulled Fenris up, almost too-protective healing magic feeling him up for broken bones. "They're running away from the sarebaas."

"But they shouldn't be able to get this far. Where are the barricades?"

Her face was dark and closed off. "Let's go and find out."

"Asala-tar?" repeated Hawke, lengthening her pace to keep up with him, the dog back at her side. "Why were those Qunari running away?"

"It's the curse of Seheron. It means the sickness of the soul. When a warrior has seen too much, even a memory is enough to flee in panic."

Hawke nodded, and he knew she was thinking about the sarebaas in Kirkwall. She opened her mouth to ask him something else, but then they passed the curve of the tunnel and the thick scent of fog and blood hit his nostrils-

The Qunari were slaughtering the Fog Warriors.

He ran into the battle without thinking, without reacting, Fulga alive and bloodthirsty in his hands. The blood was everywhere. Some of it was Qunari. Some. But then – he dodged a heavy blow, phased through the weapon as the axe ground against the stone, and killed the soldier before he even realised he was there – there were bodies on the floor, and some of the shadows in the fog were pulling them out, into the crooks of the earth where the fog was thick enough to veil them from the view… A familiar face flashed on the ground as he rolled to avoid a low-shot arrow, temple dripping with red, but he didn't have the time to linger as the ground shook, and he heard the sarebaas.

He clung to the rocks, pressing his ears tightly. A pounding roar resounded through the tunnels, the energy coiled around them, and his lyrium flashed out violently as he realised with perfect clarity there was nothing he could protect himself with from the explosion-

A shield closed around him, hot and flickering at the touch.

He'd missed her.

Hawke was at his side, eyes shining in the pale white light of his lyrium. "Incoming!" She pulled Asha closer as well, and the warrior obliged, face down on the ground just as Fenris had been a second before. Hawke planted her staff on the ground, determination twisting her face, and he felt the shield expand until it almost sealed off the entire breadth of the tunnel, the glimmering energy almost palpable in the air, standing guard before the Warriors and Qunari alike who had kneeled or lain still, arms around their ears and faces…

The screeching, burning inferno of the sarebaas' explosion closed in on their tunnel. Fenris closed his eyes.

One energy clashed with another with the force capable of felling a mountain. But-but-

They were still alive.

They were still alive.

He dared open his eyes. And Hawke kneeled on one knee in front of him, staff firmly slammed into the black rock, holding the flames at bay with the translucent, glimmering barrier. Her face was twisted with effort – and the depths of the energy coursing through his lyrium made him dizzy – but she held it off.

She'd held off the attack of a Seheron sarebaas.

And it shouldn't be catching him as unawares as it had, considering that he knew she'd teleported him here from Ferelden – but this was Seheron. This was the world that had made him. The world whose magic was to destroy and kill and maim.

And yet – and yet – Hawke kneeled in front of him, leaning on the faithful mabari, the barrier holding as the flames on the other side died down, leaving them back in the darkness.

He looked at Asha's face. She seemed shell-shocked.

But the battle wasn't over yet. The other side of the tunnel could have been scorched, but there were more than enough Qunari on this side. Thankfully, they were all still on the ground, figuring out how it happened they were alive… Vindr butted Hawke's side with his head and jumped into action. A gargling scream told Fenris the dog wasn't wasting time.

Asha followed the mabari, and he could hear the effect of her silent advance. But Hawke – Hawke sprang forward, her human feet resounding loud and clear in a now-empty tunnel. He swore soundlessly and followed her. The stupid, mad mage-

There were scorched corpses on his way, the burnt stench of human flesh reminding him of the worst of Danarius' experiments, and he felt sick in the stomach. But Hawke did not stop now slow down, and Fenris finally realised that she was looking for the sarebaas.

He closed his hand on her shoulder hard. "You don't know where you're going!"

"I could feel his aura from a mile away," sounded a clipped response, and Fenris reminded himself that even though Hawke could not see – and could not hear the still-raging battle on the other side, apparently – there were other senses he had lesser than hers.

"You know the battle isn't over until the sarebaas is alive, Fenris."

He let go. "I'm coming with you."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

They continued along the tunnel, passing the scorched remains of the barricades. There weren't as many corpses as he'd expected to find. The Fog Warriors were experts at surviving, he told himself, there would be more of them… But the tunnels were silent, and the only echoes of the battle came from behind them.

Until there was a jangle of steel rattling on the other side, and Fenris reflexively clung to the wall, a fog bomb dripping white smoke at his feet...

"Was that the last of them?" asked a deep voice in heavily accented Qunlat. Hawke squeezed his hand in the dark.

"Ought to be, Hissrad. Everything else will be burned through."

"Send them to the fort. This is the first fucking time we've got the bastards alive. Almost worth dealing with a sarebaas."

The other Qunari spat on the stone. "Almost."

The Warriors are alive. Hawke watched him in the darkness, incomprehension blatant in her face, and he gave her a reassuring squeeze.

"Who would've thought. Sixty fucking years of jungle skirmishes and all we had to do is to dig."

"This is not done yet." The hissrad's voice was ominous. "Fuck knows where they're hiding. We just need to crash this rock to the ground and bury them all inside. If that island ever taught me anything… "

He trailed off. Fenris heard him sniff loudly.

"It's just the fog."

"Ashaad," the hissrad snapped. "How long have you been here?"

"Three months."

"And was it ever just the fucking fog?"

"No-" The subordinate stuttered. "I mean, we were fighting in here. The smell sticks."

"No. This is directly where the sarebaas fired. It would have burned everything out. And this is nice and fresh. Meaning…" The voice dropped into something low and unpleasant. "We've got some more of the Fog Fuckers."

Fenris cursed the bomb at his feet. But there was no way out now.

He stepped out of the fog.

The hissrad was a giant, bulking beast with horns twice as thick as his arm. He held the largest axe Fenris had ever seen, and there was ruthless, cold-blooded intelligence in his gaze.

And there was a column of soldiers behind him.

The hissrad's eyes narrowed. "Careful, boys. It's never just one."

And that was the moment Hawke's lightning shot him in between the eyes.

The Qunari stumbled back, but did not fall. Another lightning flickered through his axe, forcing his hand open; the rattle of metal against stone seemed to have energised the Qunari behind him, running towards them both with weapons outstretched.

He threw another bomb right in between them and lunged into the fight-

"A fucking mage," spat the hissrad, taking a swing directly at him. He dodged, but barely – the Qunari seemed unbelievably nimble for how he was just a walking mountain of muscle. "How long did you take to get this one on?" Another devastating blow fell just an inch away from his head.

A column of fire exploded behind them, and the Qunari started screaming, some of them running into the flames to the exit of the tunnel, catching fire as they ran-

She's acting the sarebaas. He could feel her energy swelling behind him, an odd joy in her flaming spells. She's playing their asala-tar to our advantage-

The hissrad picked the axe back up, his fingers stiff and still half-paralysed, and Fenris jumped away. "Come to daddy, you fucker. See if I can cut you some more of this makeup."

Fenris would have laughed, if it weren't for the danger. The Qunari was large, so his nimbleness was a trap; but he had some traps of his own.

His lyrium started to shine as he focused on the energy coursing through the giant body in front on him, the blue glow at his left side pouring in light to the veins. The pulsing of Hawke's aura became almost visible, flaming red and cold ocean blue coming together into something intricate and blindingly white… He crossed the space between him and the Qunari in the time that had become slow and sticky like syrup, reaching out with ease to pluck out the heart from the depths of the flesh-

A hot wind of explosion flew the bulk of the hissrad onto him, almost knocking him unconscious. The sarebaas. They brought him back.

"Fenris!" The Fade swirled around him and Hawke was at his side in an instant – something she'd never done in battle before – pulling him away from the hissrad. The Qunari was lying unconscious, his head dripping bloodily at the black stone, and Fenris understood that by taking the entire heat of explosion onto himself, the hissrad had probably unwittingly saved his life. He felt his lips curve in a vicious smile as he reached for the sword. Come to daddy…

"The sarebaas, Fenris! Quickly!"

He turned away and ducked under Hawke's shield when another swishing fireball coursed through the tunnel. The collared mage stood at the bottom of the tunnel, almost at the entrance to the crevasse, his arvaraad standing at the side and pulling at the chain. Hawke's lips twisted at that. Outside, he could hear the calling of the remaining Qunari squad, screaming and kicking something squishy he could only assume were the Fog Warrior captives... He plunged Fulga into the necks of the knocked-out Qunari on the way, closing the distance for the sarebaas. The arvaraad seemed to blanche as he saw them approach, tugging at the chain, another sizzling ball of lightning forming in the hands of the sarebaas. He let go, and Fenris instinctively threw himself in front of Hawke before realising that it should make more sense the other way around, closing his hand on her staff – his markings flashed as a searing pain went through the lines of his tattoos, and he reached out, catching the energy that was burning in the air, and just – just –

Stop.

The lightning did not reach them.

It stopped still in the air, a glimmering, burning line of energy, caught and encased in a – he had to look again –

In a bolt of ice.

Hawke's face was a mixture between painful focus and victory. She looked at him and he nodded, not knowing what he was agreeing to, but the lyrium was burning with perfect white in his skin, and he could feel the energy in the air, the delicate balance between the ice and lightning-

"One and the other," she whispered through clenched teeth, eyeing their hands closed on the staff. "One… and… the other." And the trapped lightning moved, deliciously slow, back to the arvaraad who was tugging at the chain, roaring curses, and the sarebaas who stood still and silent-

And then it exploded, throwing them out of the tunnel and out into the crevasse. A shattering thunder roared into the abyss.

Hawke kissed him.

It was just a splinter of a second, but it left the burn of the lightning. "Thank you," she whispered before running off to the exit of the tunnel where the Qunari were still yelling curses, and he followed her, matching every two of her steps with one of his. This woman. This impossible woman. And there was fire, and there was fighting, and blood on Fulga's stained blade, but the battle was won.

The battle was won.

The last Qunari fell to his feet to the cheering of those of the Fog Warriors that were still conscious. Fenris cut through their bindings; men and women with the skin like his own, the white paint covering their faces and hair, fell to their feet again, and, through bloody mouth, greeted him with nothing but fierce joy of being alive…

The Qunari were dead, and they were alive.

"You… came through, White Wolf." Olor was lying on the ground, and Fenris felt a pang of guilt. If it weren't for him, the young elf wouldn't have been on the barricades to begin with. Olor coughed up the blood, and Hawke kneeled at his side, trying to pull him up; but as her magic touched him, she blanched.

"Hang in there, bud. You'll be okay." She spoke in Common, but the elf flashed a white-toothed smile like he understood. Then – then smile grew a little wider and a little more still to keep being cheerful –

Fenris kneeled next to the young Warrior and touched his neck. There was no pulse.

"He brought me in," whispered Hawke. "Just hours ago. He brought me in." Her face had gone pale again, and he knew she was back in Kirkwall now, kneeling at the side of a clothes merchant with the body crushed by the Chantry rock-

He pulled her up, shaking her out of the impasse. "We need to get them out of here. Now." He ignored the heavy stone that his stomach had seemingly turned into. Fog Warriors do not grieve. He took one unconscious warrior in his arms, Hawke brought out her staff and sent another two levitating – the haunted looks on the faces around him did not escape his attention – and, in a slow, bloodied procession, they started stumbling back up to the tunnels.

They crossed the line of scorched rock, but there were no unconscious Qunari there, save for the bodies he'd left. That made him uneasy. The hissrad was still out there. But – for now –

The battle was won. He was carrying the results.

Vindr found them first, shortly followed by Asha – both of them similarly bloodied and exhausted. The dog came up to Hawke as if to apologise to have stayed behind; she just tapped his head, the palm of her hand reddening as she did so.

Asha blinked, watching the procession of wounded and unconscious Warriors roll out from the tunnels. He bumped shoulders with her.

"We killed the sarebaas."

An uncertain smile blossomed on her face. The haunted look did not go away, but at least now it was covered. "I never doubted you, brother."

"There are…" He swallowed hard, watching Hawke pass the levitating bodies through the length of the tunnel. "Casualties. Many of them."

"There always are."

"But we won. We held the camp."

"Yes," she agreed, touching his arm. He waited for the tapped message, but there was none; her fingers were still on his skin, just as exhausted as her eyes.

"Asha…"

"We won," she said, turning away. "And we're alive. We live on."

This is the way of Seheron. We live on. We don't mourn our dead, we hold on to whatever we've wrenched out of the enemy's grasp, and we live on.

He looked around and realised that out of the charred bodies, the maimed corpses tugged forward by the wounded, the bloodied warriors coming home in a long, silent procession… he knew their faces.

The rock in his stomach seemed crushing.

Not another Kirkwall. Not another Kirkwall. "Asha, there's something you have to know-"

"This is not over yet," she said, already walking away. "The Siege continues."

The triangular, sneering face of the hissrad flashed in his mind. "Yes. It does."

And their silent procession went on, a victory and a funeral at once.

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 _Was it or was it a harrowing one to go through? Yeah? Yeah? UGHHHHH._

 _I'm back! And because I was away, this one is probably one of the longest chapters in the CotC history. And honestly, I'm wayyyy too sick of it at this point to reread it *again*, so just send your angry/confused/disappointed tomatoes to .com (nonexistent yet, as I am new to this entire tumblr game, but it will be there soon)._

 _I have lots of feelings about this chapter and what it stands for in CotC as a whole, but they're all rather glum and not connected to this entire romance arc (no shit sherlock), so I think I'd rather just shut up. There's just no escaping death and destruction in Thedas. The only thing you can do about it is to choose the way you approach it... which will likely be covered next chapter, along with a TON of Fog Warrior lore._

 _We're like four chapters away from the end. Just sayin'._

 _(also, who's that sneaky hissrad? who indeed?)_


	32. Fog

**CHOICE OF THE CHAMPION**

 **Part III: SEA AND LIGHTNING**

 **Chapter** **Chapter 16: Fog**

He knew many of the dead.

Maris, a Silvangali with three children and a wife already dead by Tevinter. Fyrna, a Tempii, barely twenty one. Acaria, her one-eyed older sister, the scar spreading through half of her face, and he remembered that he'd asked her once about how she did not seem thrown off by fire… she'd laughed. _It's not fire that did this to me,_ she'd said, _it's the Vints. Why would I blame fire? I know who my enemy is._

She was lying on the cavern floor now, her good eye closed and blackened.

One third of the Warriors was dead.

One out of three people that spoke to him, that cheered at him, that had welcomed him in and accepted his bloodright to be one of them, a white-haired white-faced ghost in the fog… that had named the warrior of their legend, and that had stayed to defend the camp when he'd said it was the right thing to do.

He kneeled motionlessly at the feet of the bodies, staring at the white symbols on the basalt walls. They were freshly made. Many – as the uncertain, wavy lines betrayed – by children of the dead.

One third of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the tribe… dead. A memory floated in, unwilling, and he squeezed his eyes shut, wishing it away…

 _Verra's eyes, impossibly big, shocked eyes, her hand outstretched as she reaches to touch her dead mother's still face. The blood leaves a mark on her hand. The kid flinches, brings the hand back to her face, staring at it, as if looking for a world where it makes sense._

 _He thinks about Asha._

 _Verra is younger than Asha when her family dies a bloody, violent death in front of her._

He listened to the other side of the cave, where the wounded lied. The healers walked around them, the worst averted; there had been no more shuffling from the _alive_ side to the _dead_ side for hours now. Those who'd been doomed to die had died.

 _This is the way of Seheron._

A tight fist held his insides, one that clenched more and more painfully with every body he was looking at. Hawke had been with the other healers from the moment their funeral procession arrived at the camp; she wasn't that sort of a mage, but there had been more than enough experience in the field to have prepared her for this type of injuries. And then she had worked with the _abomination,_ a long time ago… back in Kirkwall, which had still at that point been more than just a flaming ruin.

He let out a shaky breath.

 _The Fog Warriors don't grieve._

It wasn't what he was feeling. And it wasn't what he was _seeing_ around him.

Vindr walked silently to his side, butting his arm in a friendly, comforting way. He patted the head of the mabari, noticing thoughtlessly that someone had cleaned the blood off his thick short fur. The dog looked at him, gathered that Fenris was not going to move, and then laid down at his side, sympathetic brown eyes on the long line of corpses.

Suddenly Fenris felt a pang of homesickness so strong it almost made him gasp.

It didn't make _sense._ He didn't have a home. The mansion back in Kirkwall had served its purpose, but outlived it with the rest of the city. _Hawke'_ s mansion was the same – familiar, but never his. The Fog Warrior camp was the closest he could ever call his own, with the tent with lightning patterns on the leathers, but even so – it was just a stop in the journey. Just one more stop.

So why was he feeling like that – like the very fundaments of his life were fleeting away, crumbling from under him, and the only way to stop it was to run back somewhere safe – home?

Vindr cast him a worried look, and Fenris realised he was shaking. He put his hand on the dog's neck, trying to calm himself. _The Fog Warriors are dead. But they live to die for their own freedom. They live their lives from battle to battle, and… and…_

The wide-opened, dead eyes of a girl staring at the blood on her hand flashed in his mind again.

 _Am I the reason for it?_

 _Was I the reason for it, ten years ago? Was I, Asha?_

A Coruscati. A right of blood he'd spilt, sunk in the ground of Seheron. But that blood was long gone now, forgotten… and he was nothing but the bringer of death. First he brought them Tevinter… now it would be the Qunari. They should have vanished from the caverns long before.

And yet he told them to stay and fight.

He fixed his eyes on the ground again.

The steps approaching him pulled his out of his silent reverie. There was only one pair of legs on Seheron that made this much noise in its approach, and judging by Vindr's perked-up ears, he knew that too.

Hawke slipped to her knees at his side, her aura enveloping him like a blanket. She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder.

They stayed silent for a long moment, and the tight knot in his stomach loosened just a tiny fraction of an inch. There was still death and mourning and incomprehensible horror of the world spreading right in front of him, but – but –

But they had already lived through it.

And they were still there.

 _Through so much death and destruction, we live on. Even when the pieces of our souls chip off in the fall, we live on._ He opened his arms and she hugged him tight, pressing her face to his chest and digging her fingers through the leathers, just to reach the skin under the layers of armour-

And the last person he'd ever want to think about slipped into his mind, another unwanted memory pouring in as if someone sliced his brain clean. The _abomination,_ years ago in Kirkwall. The conversation Hawke and he had at Satinalia, Fenris listening with obsessive jealousy as she talked to Anders about his sister and the pain of losing her family…

And the _abomination_ responded with the tale of his own…

 _Were they my responsibility? Absolutely. But they weren't my fault._

There was more than enough death Anders was guilty of. But that was now. Back then, when the city had still been whole and Leandra had still been alive, the only crime he had been guilty of was making Hawke trust him.

 _Responsibility. But not fault._

He stared at the dead bodies in front of him, holding the woman he loved in his arms. He understood now why she'd been carrying a list of the dead under her shirt; a bloodright of her own, a promise sealed by death. The Champion's duty. The Warrior's responsibility…

He closed his eyes, unwilling to let go of the tears that threatened to spill his grief. _Just want to go home-_

 _I'm sorry,_ he repeated in his mind, his arms clutching around Hawke like a lifeline, once for every man and woman that had lost their lives in the proud, ill-conceived attempt to _stay, stand their ground…_ for every one out of three Fog Warriors that had welcomed him, for every one out of three that had left the children behind, for every one out of three that would not have mourned, that would have marked their losses and… and lived on. _This was my responsibility. I'm sorry._

Maybe he wasn't a Fog Warrior after all.

He grieved.

A calloused hand closed on his shoulder from behind, and he shuddered, reflexively reaching for the sword-

 _The funeral,_ signed Asha on his skin, and walked away.

-/-

It was the second funeral that he'd ever attended. And despite all the differences – there was no Revered Mother to say the prayers now, the circle of fog dancers gathered around the fire instead, and there were white runes staining the basalt stone instead of flowery garlands wreathing around the sky-high Chantry columns, the last gift from Sebastian – the fire burned tall and white in the high-ceilinged cave, spreading its glow at his feet, its crackling filling the emptiness that his thoughts had left in the mind.

Hawke's hand was warm in his.

Perhaps that was the biggest difference.

The survivors had put the bodies of their fallen kin in a long row before the fog dancers' fire. There were five of them, one for each tribe: the Silvangali, dressed in dark green, the Tempii in violet, the Piveri in red, the Andurili – the elves – in misty blue, and the Herondini in deep brown. Together they did not even fill the breadth of the cavern.

The long lines of the warriors stood at the fire, their faces calm, impassive, waiting.

But there was a hole in the fog dancers' formation, the six-legged rune that ran over the height of the fireplace along the tall wall of the cave, and Fenris' heart shrunk at the sight. He found Asha in the crowd; she was close to the fire, eyeing the dancers as they spoke together, their voices hushed in an incantation. She obviously hesitated. There was a hole in the formation, and she was the only one not wearing green, violet, red, blue, or brown.

 _The Coruscati wore grey._

But the dancers shifted, changed positions, and the gap closed. There was no surprise on Asha's face, just grim resignation.

And it reminded him of Hawke's face just days after the Kirkwall had been destroyed…

He tugged at Hawke's hand and she followed him closer to the fire, passing the lines of the warriors until they came closer to Asha. The woman looked at him, and for the first time Fenris noticed the line of age crossing the face far too young for it.

She wasn't trying to rebuilt the tribe. She _was_ the tribe, the last of the bloodline, the chief and the dancer, desperately trying to keep the Coruscati and the Fog Warriors alive like generations before her. And just one look at her face made it clear that the decision to stay and fight – the decision that he had taken as his – was weighting on her even harder.

Hawke took a look at her, then at him. She gave a tiny nod, of approval or encouragement, and let go of his hand.

 _It was his turn to grow._

"Asha," he said in a low voice, taking one step closer. "I had a sister in Tevinter."

She cast him an empty glance. "I had brothers here."

"Her name was Varania." He remembered the thrill that he'd felt when he'd read the name for the first time. "I brought her to Kirkwall, but she betrayed me. She took my… _former_ master with her to recapture me. She was a mage in his household."

Pity glimmered in Asha's eyes. "Betrayal of your kin hits the hardest."

"It was easier to think I did not have a sister. No allegiances except what I chose to give. Except my duty to Hawke."

The pity changed into something harder and colder. "You forgot us."

"I thought there was no way back. The death I brought…" He trailed off, terrified for a split second that his voice would break.

"The death _Tevinter_ brought," she corrected him impassively. There was still the echo of the burn in her eyes.

Fenris cursed himself. The words never came easily to him, and not less so when he was trying to express something as complex and painful as this. "You think this is your fault, for making the Warriors stay and fight," he said bluntly, and the burn in Asha's eyes died down.

"Yes."

"I made the decision too." And because Tevene was the worst language to express emotions, he reached out and signed a simple mark on her forearm.

Two lines, going through an unbroken circle.

 _Your brother._

And another one: a rune of the Fog Warriors, a lightning bolt spreading its long tail at the bottom.

 _Coruscati._

She looked at him, and there were no tears in her eyes, no pain, no sorrow. The blank expression that marked grief in Fog Warriors. Just – a hint of light at the bottom, just the slightest glimmer of hope –

"I can bear this weight with you," he said, not trusting his voice, but past the point of caring. Hawke was watching him, an uncertain half-smile on her face, and he knew that it was no accident that the two women in his life were crushed by the same burden, the same responsibility, the same pain. And this time, he knew what to do about it. " _I want to._ "

And Asha squeezed his hand on her arm so hard he winced. Even with an injured shoulder, the woman was _way_ too strong for her own good.

"Took you long enough," she said in a low voice, letting go. He fought to urge to shake his aching hand; Hawke raised an eyebrow at him.

But then the drums started resounding, and all eyes of the Fog Warriors were on the dancers. It felt good, Fenris realised, to think about something else than the bodies along the walls; but his attention was brought back to them with a painful slap.

Claiming responsibility was hollow without remembering the dead.

And so, Asha at his left side and Hawke at his right, he watched as the dancers went along the rows of the bodies, calling out the names of the fallen; the names he'd known, heard in the safety of the camp or on the battlefield. Faces he knew that had smiled at him from the other side of the bonfire, hands he knew that had taught him tricks to clean a blade, to hunt with silent darts, and the sacred alchemy to cook a fog and close it in a sack…

The ceremony dragged, sombre and silent, a reminder of how many lives exactly had been lost. But finally the oils were poured, and dancers passed the torch between them, the white fire crackling with false cheer, always hungry for more – even bodies…

He saw Verra in the first rows of the Silvangali, the hands of her aunts clasped firmly on her small, narrow shoulders, and averted his gaze like he's been burnt.

"Do you know why we don't mourn, Fenris?" Asha asked quietly, and he shook his head wordlessly. They felt grief like every sentient being on Thedas, the funerals were the evidence of it – and he needed no more than to look at Verra's face, tears smudging the white paint on her little round cheeks. But he didn't dare. He kept his head low, squeezing Hawke's small hand in his.

"Because we don't die," said Asha, and he wanted to sneer at that. It was pointless _and_ cruel to say religious bullshit to negate the depth of grief for the families of the fallen, and her _own_ grief, and her _own_ responsibility... "Look."

Despite himself, Fenris looked.

For a second he couldn't see anything, the fires barely flashing through the dense white smoke that spread through the cave. And then he saw the Warriors' silhouettes slowly vanishing in the thickening white veil, opening their arms to the smoke, little Verra grasping for it and crying openly, all pretence of toughness forgotten, and it hit him.

 _The fog._

Rilus' voice was no louder than a crack of the flames, and yet it resounded in the caves.

"Nothing stays in the ground in Seheron. Nothing stays dead. Even in their death, our kin shield and protect us. The blood they spilt runs through the trees and flies in the winds, and the fog is their breath that gives us safety and victory. We are the children of the ever-living jungle. We are the Fog Warriors. "

He saw Hawke's eyes through the white smoke, shining with shock and sudden _understanding._

There was no need for language. She could see the _fog._

The fog, the protector, the veil, the saviour, the guarantee of survival in Seheron – the breath of the jungle, the resurrected rain, the closing circle, the – the –

 _the dead of Seheron._

 _Nothing stays in the ground. Nothing stays dead._

 _The blood of Hyruna spilt in the ground, breathed out by the trees and calling-_

And now – now –

The thick smoke surrounded him, and for a second he felt he'd suffocate – but Asha was staring at the fog with wide eyes, sobbing openly, reaching out, and the white cloud swirled around her, and for a second he could swear the Warriors stood with them, their white faces blurred by the fog no differently than if they just stood to fight; and then the cloud moved, ebbed softly, a distant laughter still ringing in his ears as an unreal hand patted his shoulder, and Ulda of the Silvangali's voice sounded in the fog, _we'll fight together tonight,_ and then Olor waved at him, big grin on his face as he stood behind Hawke; he reached out but it was nothing but the smoke, nothing but her eyes staring in wide-open surprise behind him, and there, behind him – Asha's sobbing cut off like a broken string – a shadow of an old fog dancer, hair white like his own, not by way of Tevinter, but with age… _Hyruna,_ he wanted to cry out, but the fog throttled the cry in his throat, and he wanted to slump to his knees, to bow for forgiveness, but –

\- was it Hawke? was it Asha? was it _Hyruna?_ was it his own knees that did not buckle, _you're not a slave, you're a Warrior Who Wielded Lightning, and for all that Tevinter took away, you came back. You came back._

 _But you didn't,_ he wanted to say, and the spectre smiled.

 _I never left._

The fog thickened, and Fenris felt hot tears trickle down his face. No-one would see them. No-one except the ghosts in the fog, the breath of the dead that still protected the Warriors.

"We fall," said the voice of Rilus from far away.

"But we don't remain fallen." The crowd of the Warriors answered without hesitation, loud, open, _free_ sound resonating high under the ceiling of the cave.

"We break."

"But we don't remain broken." The voices were faltering, rasping, throttled by emotion and tears, but they were loud nevertheless. The Fog Warriors did not hide.

"We are the children of the ever-living jungle, the island of Lusaac and the Marchers of Four Winds. Our blood is in every stone and every vine of Seheron, and our spirits are in the fog. And _we live on._ "

"We are the Fog Warriors!" A deafening roar went through the cavern, the crowd weeping and laughing and – and –

Hawke looked at him in the fog. "Your people are mad," she whispered, but there were tears streaming down her face, and she was smiling, a heartbroken expression in her eyes.

 _Your people._

"We don't... grieve," said Asha in heavily accented Common. She looked straight at Hawke, and for the first time Fenris realised that he'd told Asha about Kirkwall and what happened after. The women stared at each other through the fog, their faces tearstained and puffy, and he thought of all the dead they had left in the Free Marches. Of all the dead here. Of the fog under whose cover he fought from the moment he'd arrived. There was so much death around him and Hawke. "We… live."

Hawke sniffed and nodded.

The fog was swirling around them, and for a moment, between the still-burning funeral pyres and the white smoke coiling on their hair and faces, he could swear the three of them were the only ones in the world.

-/-

The war council was to be in the night, once the pyres had burned away. They had retreated to the tent, the warriors around him talking in hushed voices – for the first time since he'd known them, there was no laughter, no loud speaking in the cavern. But the faces of the Fog Warriors were far from defeated.

He was reminded again and again that they were a people for whom death and war were constant companions. And they had remade their dead into their strongest weapon.

 _The faces in the fog…_

Outside of the tent, he could hear Hawke and Asha talk. The conversation was hushed, torn between two languages and a whole lot of heavy silence, but – despite the long pauses and Asha's clearly guarded tone, _it was a mage after all_ – they kept talking. It really shouldn't be that surprising, Fenris thought, considering how unerringly similar the two of them were.

He contemplated walking out to join them and offer his help with translation, then thought better of it. There were things he did not want to meddle with.

Hawke said something outside of the tent and Asha chuckled – a half-throttled, but undeniably sincere sound. He turned his head away and started cleaning the sword, a smile tugging at the side of his lips.

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 **-/-**

 _Chapter sixteen, in which we talk about grief. ... who am I kidding this entire fic is about grief. And processing it._

 _This chapter was meant to be longer, also encompassing the war council that comes immediately after, but stuff's happening again and I'm flying out to England tonight, so I'll probably finish the next one after Sunday. Sorry to be so slow, we're literally on a final stretch now! Bear with me!_

 _In the meantime, I can tell you I've already finished off the last bit of the epilogue, in which Hawke shares her hard-won wisdom with her former teacher... but that's for much later. Just wanted to let you guys know that it *is* there._

 _Also: FOG WARRIORS. FOOOG WARRIORRRRSSSSS._


End file.
